DrugFAM`s Annual Bereaved by Addiction Conference 2015

‘Do we ‘recover’ or do we
‘adjust’ when we are bereaved
by drugs or alcohol?
Annual Bereaved by Addiction Conference
Saturday 3 October 2015
Venue: Jurys Inn, 245 Broad Street, Birmingham B1 2HQ (www.jurysinn.com)
Cost: £25.00 (includes lunch, tea and beverages throughout the day)
Please apply to: [email protected]
Please apply to: [email protected]
About our facilitators
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips
Founder, Bereaved Mum and CEO
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips is DrugFAM’s Founder and Chief
Executive Officer. She is passionate about the need for support
for those bereaved by addiction to drugs and alcohol. This is the
seventh Bereaved by Addiction National Conference organised by
DrugFAM. Elizabeth has recently helped to review the Bereaved
by Substance Use Guidelines research by the Universities of Bath
and Sterling published in June 2015. www.drinkanddrugsnews.
com/substance-related-bereavement/ She has also worked
to launch a new set of workshops to support bereaved young
people aged 18-30 in July, August and September this year
which are sponsored by The Amy Winehouse Foundation
http://www.drugfam.co.uk/how-we-help/bereavment/nicholasmills-memorial-project-3/ She sits on the Advisory Board for
Adfam and Cruse who are re running a project, (funded by the
National Lottery) to explore the experiences of families affected
by drug and alcohol related bereavement. The project will
eventually develop peer support groups where bereaved family
members will be trained to support others who are going through
similar experiences and produce good-practice resources for
professionals. Elizabeth lost her twin son Nicholas in 2004.
Peter Cartwright
Specialist Bereavement Counsellor
Peter has worked with families affected by drug and alcohol
use since 1999, mostly for the national charity Adfam. He has
extensive experience of supporting family members through
helpline work, outreach at London prisons and through facilitating
a weekly family support group. Building on this work he now
trains both families and professionals in all aspects of families and
substance use. Peter also has a particular interest in bereavement
through working as a specialist bereavement counsellor for four
years. Over the last five years these three strands of his career
have come together through working with DrugFAM, such as
training their staff and volunteers and contributing to the writing of
DrugFAM’s new bereavement booklet. Peter’s background is in
prison education and project management in the oil industry.
Graeme Skinner
Graeme trained as a geologist in Southampton before
transferring to theology in Bristol. He has worked in churches
in London, Manchester and Wirral. At present, he is the vicar
of St Mary’s Upton, Wirral (www.stm-upton.org.uk). Since
losing his son Jim in 2007, he has been helped by DrugFAM
as he has attended every annual conference and has learned
from various related training programmes. He is now also a
volunteer for Care for The Family, Bereaved Parents Support.
He designed a website (www.seeyousoon.me.uk) to support
his wife Philippa’s book, ‘See You Soon’.
Philippa Skinner
Philippa has been part of DrugFAM since 2009. She is a
counsellor currently working with 2 agencies in her home area,
and is also continuing to study, hoping to complete an MA in
counselling studies next year. She published ‘See You Soon’ a
mother’s story of drug related loss, grief and hope in 2012.
About our Speakers: Diane Esguerra
Author of Junkie Buddha: A Journey of Discovery in Peru
Attempting to Create
Value through Loss
I’m a writer, a psychotherapist and a
bereaved mother who lost her only child,
Sacha, in 2005.
In the chapel of rest, my son’s body,
by law, had to remain in a plastic body
bag because he’d died of an accidental
heroin overdose. But Sacha, like so many
addicts, was more than ‘just a junkie’. To
his friends and family he was wise, gentle,
creative, handsome and kind – a global
and a spiritual traveller; a lover of animals
and nature.
Sacha, who was half-Colombian and loved
climbing mountains, had hiked the Inca trail
in Peru. Shortly before his death he told
me he’d love to return to Machu Picchu
and watch, once again, the sun rise over
the sacred Inca citadel. I travelled alone to
Peru to scatter his ashes at Machu Picchu
on the first anniversary of his death.
The journey wasn’t an easy one – but I’d
already been navigating a treacherous path
through the minefield of drug addiction
and mental illness – both legacies of my
son’s sexual abuse at prep school. Peru’s
stunning landscape and anguished history
mirrored Sacha’s troubled psyche and
provided the backdrop for me to process
the fraught journey we’d shared together
and to attempt to come to terms with its
heartbreaking conclusion. Peru helped to
reconnect me with life.
As a Buddhist I believe that life is
precious and that value can potentially be
created through any suffering – however
harrowing. When I returned from Peru I
set up Greenlight Healing and Personal
Development Consultancy, working in
London and Surrey. When my husband’s
job was relocated to Media City, Salford
Quays in 2012, Greenlight and I moved up
with him. It just so happens that most of
the clients I counsel have suffered abuse,
addiction or bereavement.
As painful as it has been, I believe that my
journey with Sacha, both before and after
his death, has made me a better therapist
and a more compassionate human being.
Diane’s book is published on September 11th 2015 and
will be available for purchase at the conference.
“An uplifting book about finding
value in the painful experience
of profound loss”
“I could not put this gripping
travel memoir down”
Julia Stephenson
Sandie Shaw
Morning Session
9.00am – 10.00am
Welcome
Registration and gathering for tea and coffee
10.00am – 10.10am
Our facilitators Graeme and Philippa Skinner will welcome everyone
and give an outline of the day
10.10am – 11.00am
Workshop:
‘What happens to those left behind by a drug or alcohol related death?’
On behalf of the research team, Dr Christine Valentine and Peter
Cartwright, will introduce and invite discussion of a set of practice
guidelines, developed from research, to help practitioners and others
to improve their response to those bereaved after a drug or alcoholrelated death. (This session will also include a tribute to the late
Joan Hollywood to whom these guidelines are dedicated).
11.00am – 11.20am
Sharing Time:
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips, bereaved mum, will introduce ‘Sharing time What brings us together?’ A time to share our stories with one another
around the table
11.20am – 11.35am
Break
11.35am – 12.30pm
Presentations:
Bereavement or adjustment to loss and grief? We hope to welcome
Jenni Thomas, founder of Grief Encounter, Child Bereavement UK
and Grief Support
Author Diane Esquerra: ‘Junkie Buddha: A Journey’.
An inspiring and uplifting book about finding infinite value in the most
intense and painful experience of profound loss
Afternoon Session
12.30pm – 1.30pm
Lunch
1.30pm – 2.30pm
Presentations:
Sophie Tickle: An update on the Nicholas Mills Memorial Project
(18 – 30 year olds) sponsored by The Amy Winehouse Foundation
Former BBC Television producer Christine Townsend
‘My journey to understand addiction and loss’
2.30pm – 3.30pm
Presentations:
Stan Cripps: ‘Why I refuse to be sad’ following the death of my son Jamie
Ado Matheson: ‘Songs from the Heart’
Clare Lane: ‘An aunty’s story’ following the death of my nephew Kane
3.30pm – 3.50pm
Break
3.50pm – 4.20pm
Peter Cartwright:
Using his professional experience as a bereavement counsellor, Peter
will provide an overview of the many contributions of the day
4.20pm – 4.45pm
Closing Reflection:
Short reflection to collect our personal thoughts and reactions from the
day and to prepare to face the daily challenges of recovery or adjustment
4.45pm
Farewells and a chance to chat, be supported or share an evening meal
About our Speakers
Dr Christine Valentine
Workshop: What happens to those left behind by a drug or alcohol-related death?
Christine is a research fellow and member of the Centre for Death and Society,
in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath.
Since 2003 she has been teaching, researching and publishing on the social
and cultural aspects of bereavement in Britain and Japan. Her research has
focused on the continuing bonds that bereaved people maintain with dead
loved ones, comparing how different countries provide support with funeral
costs for those on low income and funeral directing in the 21st Century.
From Sept 2012 to Sept 2015 she was part of the research team for a 3
year project funded by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)
on bereavement through substance use in England and Scotland. The other
members of the team were Tony Walter, Lorna Templeton, Richard Velleman
and Joan Hollywood (University of Bath) and Linda Bauld, Jennifer McKell,
Alison Ford and Gordon Hay (University of Stirling).
Jenni Thomas
OBE founder of child bereavement UK
With over 45 years experience in the NHS listening to and learning from
grieving families and children of all ages, Jenni Thomas is widely recognised in
the UK as a leading authority in grief support and education. She also works
as a consultant and facilitator in the wider community.
Jenni has spent her entire professional life as an advocate for grieving families
and children who have experienced bereavement. She has pioneered new
ways of training health care professionals, police and others who are involved
in dealing with traumatic bereavement.
By learning continuously from young people and parents, Jenni has enabled
thousands of professionals to improve the quality of care offered to families
In January 2002, Jenni received the OBE in recognition of her work with the
charity she founded and in May of that year and she won the Voluntary Sector
category of the Public Servant of the Year Awards.
In her personal life, Jenni has four children and is closely involved in the life of
her grandchildren. She lives in Marlow with her partner, journalist and author
Simon Walters.
Christine Townsend
Former BBC Television producer
After getting her degree in Politics from Sussex University Christine spent
her working life as a television documentaries producer, mainly for the BBC,
travelling the world to expose and analyse people in other societies, such as
the descendants of samurai in Japan; a headhunting tribe in the remote parts
of the Philippines, and the traffic in children from North East Thailand to slavery
in Bangkok. As a journalist her job was to cast a critical eye on the functionality
of others, which presupposed that her own life was some sort of model.
It was the unravelling of her own family life due to addiction that made
Christine change focus, and train to Diploma level in Person Centred
Counselling, after a summer course at Action on Addiction at Bath University.
In 2005 Christine and her then 19 year old twins witnessed her husband’s
death suddenly and tragically, of alcoholic liver disease. This forced her to
confront the conspiracy of silence that many people live with when there is an
addict in the family, often because of the stigma of shame.
Christine joined Alcoholics Anonymous in 2010 and started to understand
the causes of her own addiction to alcohol, and began to deal with her
bereavement without seeking comfort from an addictive substance.
For Christine the grieving process has meant the acceptance of her own
and her late husband’s denial of the causes of his early death, and she has
adjusted to the belief that ultimately the responsibility for one’s own well being
cannot be the liability of anyone else.
For Christine recovery from bereavement has also meant her own recovery
from a traditionally accepted pattern of self-medication and she now sees life
without delusion. She hopes to support those living with addiction by helping
them to devise coping strategies. Adjust, clarify, recover and move forward.
Ado Matheson
Songs from the Heart
Ado Matheson is a Celtic singer and songwriter inspired by his family tradition
of music especially his late Grandfather who was crowned ‘Celtic Bard’ in the
50’s for his writing.
Ado has lost many members of his family and friends through addiction. However
the greatest tragedy was losing his dear younger son William to heroin in 2013.
His music and writing are helping him to heal and come to terms with his grief.
he hopes above all else that his music will reach out and touch the hearts of
those who have been there regardless of time and circumstances.
About our Speakers
Clare Lane
“There is nothing you can do that will make me love you any less. You are far
too important. I will always be here for you”
These were the words that Clare had said to her gentle, funny, gorgeous,
kind, giving, and highly emotionally and mentally troubled 11 year old nephew.
A pure hearted young soul with the endless capacity to love, who had been
rushed to hospital following a near fatal inhalation of aerosols.
Over the next 12 years their bond grew and grew. Through spiralling chaotic risk taking
behaviours and serious drug experimentation throughout his teens to a devastating
heroin addiction from the age of 18, Clare remained Kane’s emotionally soft place to
fall until tragically, on the 31st August 2011, Clare went searching for Kane who had
been once again been reported missing to her by support workers, collecting his
mother, her sister Susan, on the way. Together they found Kane dead in his flat from
an accidental heroin overdose aged just 23. He had been dead for 3 days.
Utterly bewildered Clare emerged from the wreckage realising that she had to
now adjust to this new world in which she suddenly found herself and that in
doing so she would need to make some new promises.
Stan Cripps
Primary School Teacher
I became a teacher about 11 years ago; it was a career change after being a
Photographic Agent in London for 25 years. This change was partly due to my
lost son Jamie. I used to take him to school in the mornings and the question
was asked by his Nursery teacher, “I don’t suppose you’d be able to come
into the class to read with the children?” The idea appealed to me and being
self-employed it was possible, so I did.
Thus began a series of events that led me to make a massive career change,
re-mortgage the house, go back to University to finish a deferred Degree and
finally train as a teacher.
This influence was typical of Jamie, this is what he did, change people’s lives.
He was passionate about the injustices he saw in the world; he was passionate
about his art and most of all his music and he lived all of these things.
Everybody who met him felt that about him too and was invariably affected.
His death, due to a fatal methamphetamine heroin overdose, started me on a
roller coaster and desperate emotional journey where I had to ask questions of
myself, my family and my career. I often refer to this stage of my grieving as being
overrun by a tsunami, it was all encompassing. I found myself alone dealing with
this and one of the most influential stepping stones to moving forward was going
back to work and being surrounded by children.
The journey still continues, and will forever, but I want to gain some sort of control
and not be driven by my grief. Not long ago it occurred to me that the first step
would be to refuse to be sad, easier said than done but I am finding ways.
The Nicholas Mills Memorial Project
DrugFAM is supporting Young People
(aged 18 – 30) who are bereaved by addiction
The aim of the project is to support young people to
develop ways to process and cope with their loss so
they can move forward with their lives, not feel so alone
and challenge the stigma which is often associated with
bereavement through drugs and alcohol.
Next workshops
(11.00am – 16.00pm)
• Saturday 15th August
• Saturday 19th September
Venue: YHA London St Pancras,
79-81 Euston Road London, NW1 2QE
Travel expenses will be reimbursed
“Sometimes you don’t have to
just sit and talk about the issue;
time spent with people who
understand is just as beneficial”
If you would like more information regarding
this project contact:
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips
Email: [email protected]
Funded by the Amy Winehouse Foundation
Registered Charity No. 1123316 (England and Wales)
Sophie Tickle
In Memoriam
Joan Hollywood (1941-2015)
Joan Hollywood’s son died in 2008 as a result of his drug and
alcohol use. Unable to find support for grieving a death related
to substance use, Joan and her husband, Paul, founded
Bereavement Through Addiction (BTA), in Bristol. BTA provides a
helpline, support groups and an annual memorial service for those
bereaved in this way, as well as training to organisations in the field.
A tireless campaigner for people bereaved through substance use,
Joan was a key inspiration for the research on which the Bereaved
through Substance use guidelines are based. Joan was a member
of both the research team for the project as a whole and of the
working group that produced the guidelines and they are a lasting
memorial to her and her achievements. Joan and her husband Paul
attended all our previous 6 conferences.
Our mission is to be a lifeline for families,
friends and carers who are struggling to cope
with the nightmare of addiction.
Tel: 01494 442777
Helpline: 0300 888 3853 (9am-9pm)
7 days a week
[email protected]
www.drugfam.co.uk
Oakley Hall, 8 Castle Street, High Wycombe, HP13 6RF