Social enterprise opens its doors to £1m centre
A £1m recovery centre opened in Birmingham on Friday, with the promise of helping more than 300 people beat their addiction with drink and drugs every year.
Recovery Central in Digbeth will house Friends café, a dry bar, a 100-seat conference venue and incubation space for services users looking to move into self-employment.
The 15,000 sq ft venue, which has been funded by Public Health England, opened on Friday.
Steve Dixon, founder of social enterprise Changes UK, which is running the centre, said: “This is an important milestone in the Changes UK journey and one that potentially offers the ‘recovery’ blueprint for other cities to follow.
“Recovery Central gives us an amazing venue that we can use to help more people in our city into recovery from addiction and gain the skills to live a life with meaning and purpose, so that they also can be an asset to our community rather than just a burden.”
Employing 31 people, Changes UK provides a detox service, community-based rehabilitation, supported and move on housing and opportunities to gain accredited qualifications, volunteering and work experience.
Service users at the beginning of their recovery journey are supported 24 hours a day by qualified staff and specially trained volunteer peer mentors.
Mr Dixon, who remortgaged his family home to start Changes UK in 2007, added: “For each addict that stays clean it saves £50,000 every 12 months, so if we are helping 300 people at any one time we are potentially saving the city £15m.
“The revenue generated through our social enterprises and conference space will allow us to become completely self-funding, providing the platform we need continue to plug the needs of our community without the requirement to look for government funding or grants.”
