Welcome to Lewisham Recovery Day

Tim Penrice reports from Lewisham Council’s event for recovery services

For the past two years the Lewisham Recovery Day has been cancelled due to the pandemic, so it was exciting to be invited to the Civic Hall on 20 September for the 2022 event. And then the Queen died, and the event was postponed again until last week, 4 November!

Commissioners Danny Waites and Sevilay Surendrum were hosting the event and Kairos volunteer Sandra Fells and I put out the Garden Day Programme stall among the Lewisham recovery services like Change Grow Live, Humankind Charity, Metro Lewisham, DWP, DrinkCoach, Insight, Building People, Changing Minds, Quo Vadis, Phoenix Futures, 999 Club and The Bridge Café.

The Kairos GDP was invited as an abstinence treatment option or a ‘psycho-social recovery intervention’ as we are thought of now. The range of primary, aftercare and housing services that Kairos offers and the pathway possibilities were explained and welcomed and we felt very much part of the recovery service sector in Lewisham.

The main focus of the day was harm reduction, specifically with reference to the wonder drug Naloxone that saves the lives of those overdosing on opiates. ‘Naloxone Man’ George Crawford gave a powerful presentation on the need for and availability of Naloxone kits and participants were trained and given kits to take on outreach or into their workplaces.

Sandra and I had a great day out carrying the message, and we are looking forward to further partnership with Humankind and CGL particularly over the coming months.

Click for more information: Lewisham Primary Care Recovery Service (PCRS).