Community Pride Fund’s minibus boost for award winning TACT team
A group that helps people recovering from drug and alcohol problems is set to offer its service more widely across the borough thanks to a new minibus paid for by the Council’s Community Pride Fund.
Telford Aftercare Team (TACT) has been awarded more than £40,000 from the Fund to purchase a minibus and help more people to access its service.
TACT provides mutual aid, aftercare and support for people recovering from substance addiction and is staffed by ex service users, most of whom work on a voluntary basis to help others on their recovery journey.
TACT began in 2012 and run their service, which is funded mainly by the Council’s Public Health team, from Wellington. A Community Interest Company, TACT has up to 50 people per day using its service and forms a key part of Telford and Wrekin’s Drug and Alcohol Strategy.
The group will use the minibus to offer drop-in sessions at community centres and other venues elsewhere in the borough and reach more people who currently may not be able to get TACT’s help and support.
The minibus would also be used to help service users take part in outdoor activities, such as gardening, field trips, and to gain access to places in the rest of the UK. This in turn will help them on their road to recovery.
TACT’s founder Rob Eyers said: “Securing this Community Pride Fund money will help us to make our service much more widely available while also helping our service users to get more healthy.
“Currently we can only offer support at our Wellington base but this will allow us to get out to other locations and take services users out and about to take exercise outdoors – a very useful addition to the recovery journey.
“It will also allow us to visit other similar groups in the region and share what we are doing to improve our services.
“Without the support from the fund, it would have been a huge task for us to raise the money needed and make our service more widely available.”
Cllr Shaun Davies, cabinet member for Neighbourhoods, Employment and Skills added; “This is what the Community Pride Fund is all about – working with the community to improve life for people.
“This initiative will make a real difference those who use this service, improve their health and, we hope, prevent people from needing longer term support from public services and the invaluable work that TACT provides.”
The Community Pride is £1.26 million pot that the Council made available for community groups, charities and business to bid for. The scheme is supporting 37 projects across the borough with grants from between £100,000 to £2,800. It forms part of the Council’s Pride in Your Community programme.
Following the success of last year’s scheme, which was significantly oversubscribed, the Council has made funding available to run the fund again in 2017.
TACT earlier this week won national recognition when its service helped the Council to win the prestigious national Local Government Chronicle award for Public Health.
