strategies
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE
Phoenix Futures launches its new strategy this week , with the strapline ‘ The charity that is confident about recovery ’. DDN hears about the ideas behind it from chief executive Karen Biggs
One of the key tenets of Phoenix Futures ’ new strategy , which will define the organisation ’ s direction from now until 2020 , is that it ’ s time for both the charity and the sector as a whole to have the confidence to speak up , especially when it comes to issues like stigma .
‘ We were coming to the end of our last strategy and about a year ago we started to have a conversation within the senior management team about things like identity ,’ says Karen Biggs , and particularly the perceived differences between ‘ charities ’ and ‘ providers ’. ‘ We kept coming back to that .’ In the year that followed she consulted with staff via a weekly email , and began exploring ideas . ‘ Last year was a mad year for the sector , and over the course of it the sense of people in Phoenix identifying us much more as a charity than as a provider of government contracts was very real ,’ she says .
This went hand in hand with a feeling that far from stigma becoming less of an issue , it was actually on the increase . ‘ We ’ re not a lobbying or a campaigning organisation in the slightest , but what my staff were telling me was that stigma is now impacting people ’ s ability to move through treatment and achieve the life they want ,’ she says . ‘ So while we ’ re seeing a reduction in stigma in mental health , what we ’ re seeing in addiction is almost a restigmatisation of our client group . It ’ s hampering our ability to do our best for our service users .’
So why is this happening now ? ‘ I think when local communities have difficult decisions to make about where they spend their money , it becomes easier to identify groups that might not necessarily be thought as deserving as others ,’ she says . ‘ That feels like an awful thing to say about our society , but people are facing really difficult decisions and I don ’ t think localism has helped because we ’ ve introduced that element of local politics into the process .’
The fact that substance misuse is a relatively small sector compared to other areas of social care means it hasn ’ t been able to ‘ carve out that space that some of our colleagues have ’, she states , while some of the mechanisms that were intended to address those ‘ deserving / undeserving ’ issues and make sure that the needs of all groups were looked after in local decisionmaking haven ’ t necessarily worked out for the sector ’ s client group . ‘ I don ’ t really see that the health and wellbeing boards offer any protection for addiction services , for example .’
As a result , the new strategy will have a focus on talking about addiction and stigma in a much more public , high profile way . The field has sometimes been accused of insularity and having conversations with itself – does she feel this is something it ’ s shied away from in the past ? ‘ When you look at other social care sectors like mental health or housing , we ’ re relatively small and still relatively new . I think that newness makes that sense of confidence a bit more difficult to achieve , but I definitely think there ’ s more we can do . Maybe there wasn ’ t a need to do it before , but the sector has grown and more money has come into it . But you really test your mettle when things start to become a bit more difficult and you have to fight and evidence the values that your services are bringing to the wider community , rather than a particular group .’ Given that Phoenix started out as a grassroots organisation , how important has that voluntary ethos been over the years ? ‘ Phoenix has a really strong connection with its history , and that sense of where we came from is really important to us ,’ she says . ‘ It ’ s recognised in the importance of peers supporting each other in their recovery , it ’ s really important to me , and it resonates with the staff – it ’ s a real motivator .’
The new strategy is also about maximising resources – whether statutory funding or voluntary support – to widen and improve the services on offer . ‘ The important things in that new strapline are the confidence bit and the charity bit ,’ she states . ‘ There ’ s a palpable sense in this sector of decline and marginalisation , and when funding ’ s being cut across all those health and social care sectors , identifying as a provider of government contracts can at times challenge your values . It can be hard to see how you can deliver your organisational purpose , but if you switch how you think about yourselves and reconnect with that charitable purpose , you can see how a charity that ’ s dedicated to supporting people affected by substance misuse fits in the world . You see how you can deliver your purpose in a much more meaningful way , regardless of what ’ s going on with contracts and funding .’
This then creates a ‘ much more credible fundraising offer ’, she stresses – ‘ targeted and
12 | drinkanddrugsnews | May 2017 www . drinkanddrugsnews . com