Last Thursday evening, we held an invitation-only event at Art'otel Hoxton around a question that sits at the heart of our work:

What would it be like if it was healing that was passed down the generations, instead of trauma?

Three of our graduates — all parents of children ranging in age from one to thirty — spoke on the panel with honesty, courage and authenticity. They talked about what it meant to finally understand themselves. About the shame they had carried for years and what it felt like to put it down. About being able to advocate for their children in ways they never could before. About a conscious desire to recreate within their homes the sense of safety they had found on our courses — so their children could thrive in the same way they had.

The room was moved. So were we.

There was something else happening in that room worth naming. There is still so much stigma attached to addiction and the people who experience it — rooted in narratives people have absorbed without ever really having had reason to question them. Our graduates challenged every one of those narratives simply by being in the room. Articulate, warm, thoughtful, proud. Leaving people inspired and, I suspect, quietly rethinking assumptions they didn't know they held.

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Why this question matters

In 2024–25, around 170,000 people entered treatment for drug and alcohol addiction in England. Only 46% successfully completed treatment — and of those, between 65–95% will have relapsed within six months according to previous, longstanding trends. Many cycle through treatment multiple times, the underlying trauma untouched.

When trauma remains unaddressed, it doesn't disappear. It gets passed on.

Research on adverse childhood experiences tells us that children of parents who struggle with addiction are between four and ten times more likely to develop a problem with substances themselves. This isn't primarily genetic. Before a baby has even taken their first breath, the weight of their mother's world is already shaping them. And after birth, parents carrying their own unaddressed trauma often find it deeply difficult to bond with their child, to be present, to meet their emotional needs. Children who don't have those needs met grow up struggling to meet their own.

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What we do differently

At Foundation for Change, we see abstinence as the first step — not the end goal. We exist to fill the gap between a person stopping substances and truly moving forward in life.

We use education as our catalyst for change — creating learning environments where people are treated with care, respect and dignity, where curiosity is encouraged rather than shut down, and where people are supported to believe they are capable of change.

Through our courses, people begin to understand their lives not as personal failures, but as something shaped — by trauma, by inequality, by systems that let them down. And therefore something that can be reshaped. That shift — from shame to understanding — is where change begins. And for the parents we work with, it is where a different future for their children begins too.

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The bigger picture

People cannot fulfil their potential until they believe they have potential in the first place. For many of the people we work with, that belief has been buried for years. What happens on our courses is that belief gets unlocked. And once it does, the change that follows is not fragile. It lasts — and it ripples outward into families, relationships and the next generation.

We are not trying to move people through quickly. We are trying to make a difference that lasts.

Intergenerational trauma can travel through families for decades.

But so can healing.

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If something in this piece has resonated with you and you'd like to find out more about our work — or to explore how you might be involved — we would welcome the conversation. Get in touch here.