CHURCHES and local charity Faithworks are joining focus to help support The Recovery Course, a ground-breaking programme taking the South Coast by storm.

The Recovery Course is a free programme, run mostly by volunteers, and focusses on those suffering from all kind of addiction or habits. Using a Twelve Step model originating from Alcoholics Anonymous, the project helps clients to open up about their issue and help tackle their addiction.

Having been supported by the charity The Recovery Course, the course has grown out of its once localised project in London, reaching St Swithun’s church in Bournemouth 5 years ago and is now being run in over 80 locations across the UK, as well as Australia, USA, South Africa and Spain.

Emma Heath, National Partnership director for The Recovery Course and Recovery Projects Manager at Faithworks Wessex, said that the project has really taken off in the five years it has been running and more exciting times are to come.

The project looks to roll out across the Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch area, with the addition of introducing Keys Community Detox, a programme to assist people to detoxify from both alcohol and drugs, having piloted the programme. One woman has completed an alcohol reduction detox and is now 5 months sober.

In addition, there is a now a support group available for anyone affected by a person’s addiction or habit that meets regularly every Thursday at 7pm at Winton Methodist Church where people can come along and get support.

She said: “When we took on the course initially at St Swithun’s, myself and another lady were running it out of one church. Now, just five years on, we created a model for other churches to follow, have had the privilege of running the largest Church based recovery course in the UK, seeing over 890 access it.

“The amazing thing is that Bournemouth has become a focus for churches coming together to tackle a community issue with a community approach and this is model is, I believe culture changing.”

St. Mary’s Longfleet, Destiny Life Church, Parkstone’s United Reform Church, Cranleigh Community Church, Coastline Vineyard, Bournemouth Community Church, The Church of the Good Shepherd, Winton Salvation Army, Winton Methodist and Gateway are all involved in either supporting, running or looking to run future courses.

The local branch of the YMCA in Bournemouth are also currently running this course for residents and the wider community. The drug and alcohol services in Bournemouth and local commissioning services have been very supportive of this additional support that compliments the existing great work that they do.

Emma continues: “We have the foundations here to be a shining light for the rest of the UK and it is great to have Bournemouth being a nationally recognised beacon for Christian addiction support where organisations come together to help the least and the lost in our community, bring hope.”

For more information contact Emma at emma.heath@faithworkswessex.org.uk or go to https://faithworkswessex.org.uk/projects/recovery/ or call 01202 429037