Broadway releases Voices of Experience report on street drinkers

Broadway have published Voices of Experience, a new report that focuses on persistent street drinkers. The report is based on in-depth interviews with 19 street drinkers and 42 recovered street drinkers; it looks at the social exclusion they face and suggests ways to help them tackle the problems they struggle with.

Voices of Experience – How people who drink on the streets can make positive changes in their lives highlights that positive change is possible for this group. The key areas Broadway highlight that make this change possible are in step with recommendations Revolving Doors has made in the past.

These recommendations include:
• Creating a culture within social and support work of believing in and challenging people to achieve personal change
• Giving people fast access to both information about services and the services themselves
• Preventing people falling through the gaps in services by creating joint strategies between services that deal with street workers
• Ending the stigma and exclusion that prevent street drinkers from gaining the mental health support they may need
• Helping people create meaningful lives after change, including ongoing professional and social support to avoid relapse.

Many of the street drinkers in Voices of Experience also have problems with mental or emotional health and homelessness; as such they fall into the Multiple Needs group. Revolving Doors welcomes Broadway’s conclusions and their aim: not only to try to affect positive change but to show that positive change is possible in a group that faces exclusion and social stigma.