Liz and Bob set up Foundation for Change in 2014. Having worked together since 2005, they had grown frustrated with the way addiction was understood and being approached by large drug and alcohol charities and the treatment system as a whole.

On Thursday we celebrated our 5th birthday, marking the occasion with the launch of our brand new video below alongside a fabulously decorated cake made by Jess, one of our Feminism for Change participants.

It was a chance for us to reflect on how far we have come in five years – from running a course out the basement of a crumbly building with a leaky roof, to an office of 9 staff and volunteers and a training programme of four courses.

None of this would have been possible without our course participants, staff, volunteers, trustees, funders and partners who were there (and, of course, the many more who couldn’t make it). There were speeches from FfC staff and a talk from a recent graduate of Feminism for Change. Beautiful garments, incredibly designed and handmade by Bex, were out on display and the evening ended with our Chair of Trustees giving out Open College Network qualification certificates to some of our recent graduates. It felt like a fitting way to recognize some of our achievements over the last half-decade.

Extracts from two of the speeches highlight a couple of themes: 

We realised that our courses needed to offer something more than a space to talk about personal experience…to quote the German philosopher Immanual Kant, ‘Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play’…we bring experience and theory together so that our trainees gain the resilience to create the lives that they want.

– Liz, Co-Director, Foundation for Change 

We strive to live and breathe what we teach, knowing that a healthy relationship on the inside – whether as an individual or as an organization – brings out the very best in people. We walk the talk. And that, to us, is integrity.

– Bob, Co-Director, Foundation for Change

 

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