Our new three-year strategy

We are proud and excited to today launch our new three-year strategy.

These years may prove to be a transformational time for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery field. But recent history has not been easy. A decade of disinvestment and the system-shock of Covid-19 have provided the backdrop to troubling trends in drug and alcohol use and appalling increases in deaths.

Things can and should be better. It is our collective duty to seize the opportunity provided by Dame Carol Black’s Review and subsequent Drug Strategy and funding to renew our ambitions to reduce harm and nurture recovery. The pandemic has reinforced our belief that only by working together can we hope to tackle the challenges posed by the complex issues of addiction and recovery, rooted as they are in poverty, trauma and social exclusion. Learning from people with lived experience of addiction and recovery has never been more important.

This strategy outlines Collective Voice’s role as advocate, convener and collaborator within the wider collaborative mission upon which our field must surely embark. It reflects our aspirations as a young organisation to continue developing our programme of work, learning from others and growing our reach and expertise.

We will continue to advocate for the importance of evidence-based and person-centred support – and the vital role charities play in delivering it. We will help to build the field by sharing information through blogs and webinars, supporting connection through our ongoing groups and fostering innovation through discrete good practice projects.

And we will strengthen our own collective voice by appointing new independent trustees, creating a new leadership space for CEOs of charities of all sizes, working with lived experience led organisations, and proudly supporting collaborative endeavours such as the Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) Coalition and our work with the other alliances in our field.

We remain grateful to both our alliance members for their continued support of Collective Voice and to the many of you who have been part of our journey since 2015. We look forward to working with you over the course of this strategy!

Oliver Standing, Director