The O’Connor Gateway Trust is a charity which provides opportunities for people in abstinent-recovery from drug and alcohol addiction to gain skills and experience whilst also having fun!
The Trust runs two social enterprise tea rooms called Langans based in Burton upon Trent and Cannock. All profits go straight back into the community to offer more opportunities for people in abstinent recovery to help them gain skills, experience and qualifications.
The role of BAC O’Connor Centre in Staffordshire
The BAC O’Connor Centre provides rehabilitation and support to people with a drug and /or alcohol misuse problem from our centre in Burton upon Trent. Our abstinence based programme delivers an end to end service that works on the basis that rehabilitation should not end or claim to be successful until such time as an individual has a future purpose and has begun to build a foundation towards an independent lifestyle and the confidence to achieve that.
That is why the O’Connor Gateway Trust was formed to extend the programme to provide community based support to create a strong recovery community.
The role of RIOT
RIOT (Recovery is Out There) is a service user group run by graduated service users who are known as recovery champions. Our recovery champions have lived in addiction and found success through the BAC’s intensive rehabilitation programme and want to give something back to society. The aim is to spread the message that recovery is possible whether that is through school talks, meeting pre-rehab groups, and through our radio programme which will be relaunched in 2017.
Based out of the The BAC O’Connor Centre in Burton Upon Trent RIOT offers a person in active addiction the opportunity to talk to a person in recovery. From there, they can share their experiences, feelings, and worries and explore the path from addiction, through to a life of abstinence, and if that is the path they choose, RIOT will support them along their journey.
Finding the right role for you
There is a wide range of volunteering opportunities on offer and your role as a volunteer can be as varied or as simple as you wish. This pack includes a brief summary of the different volunteering roles and your coordinator will discuss the different aspects allowing you to commit to as much or as little as you feel comfortable with.
We appreciate that abilities, experience and interests have a role to play and welcome volunteers from all sections of society. Each role is of equal importance to the eventual outcome that we all strive to achieve.