Help people on their road to recovery

The RSA’s Whole Person Recovery Programme is working with treatment providers in West Kent with the aim of significantly improving the opportunities for people with drug and alcohol problems to sustain their recovery.

One of our initiatives is an individual grant scheme, which allows our service users to apply for a grant of up to £200 to help them progress in their recovery. This work is part of our Whole Person Recovery model that was developed out of our service user-led research in West Sussex.

The Small Sparks Scheme in West Kent has been running since the summer of 2012 and we have made over 150 individual grants. Applications have come from people who want to improve a wide range of things in their personal recovery. Some were wanting to improve their health and wellbeing; applying for sports club memberships or bicycles, some people wished to improve their skills; applying for training or course costs, and of course there are our budding entrepreneurs who have applied for small business start-up capital.

In West Kent we have also gone one better, and expanded this scheme to include a quarterly ‘Super Grant’ – the chance for a group of people from the recovery community to receive funding for co-producing innovative solutions to the barriers people in recovery face. Groups will be presenting their proposals to a panel of judges on Friday 6 December. This is your chance to get involved and help to decide where the grant is best directed. We are looking for up to three Fellows to be panel members on the day. This would involve a time commitment of up to four hours.

To apply to become one of our panel members and take part in this important event in West Kent, please email Jack.Robson@rsa.org.uk with your details.