Further reflections on Twitter – can the personal be professional?

Continuing my reflections on Twitter, some people think you should keep your work tweeting separate from your personal Twitter account.

I’m not so sure. My Twitter handle (see, I am learning all the lingo) is @AndyWinterBHT. I know I am slightly hindered in what I can say given the “BHT” suffix. But then, even if I had a separate account, I still couldn’t speak my mind freely because I would still be identified with that organisation I work for, whose name temporarily escapes me!

I actually like knowing that people have a hinterland, such as the Sunday ritual of @LisaSaysThis and @AMOQ1 who for some obscure reason tweet about archery or, more specifically, about The Archers themselves. The flower arranging prowess of the Handsome One, as recorded by @Huxley06, gives me hope that I too will one day be able to arrange a vase of daffs, but I sadly won’t ever become the top flight football referee that @ConallBartlett4, according to his dad, is destined to become. Then there is the Muesli Hill soap opera brought to us by @anthonyzach and @dzyrl, or baking by our very own Delia Smith, @ValPearceBHCC.

Of course all of the above successfully combine professional tweets with personal reflections and insights. I apologise unreservedly for the above comments. I think their Twitter content is the better for this fusion.

In addition to tweeting about @BHT_Sussex, and issues that impact on the organisation and its clients, I have been known to tweet about @SussexCCC and South African rugby and cricket. I have even been known to tweet about @StokeCity. This comes at some cost because every time I tweet about the Mighty Potters, I lose 2 or 3 followers. I just can’t imagine why.

I tend to keep my private life just that, private, although I have been known to mention I am watching cricket with @ClareCalder or offering her paternal advice about not getting another piercing. (She ignored me).

What gives me a great deal of pleasure is retweeting others, not least those posted by amazing third sector organisations locally. I know how much I appreciate being retweeted by them. I also retweet much of what is posted by @OurDaughtersUK, a campaigning organisation for whom I act as treasurer.

Many people put a disclaimer on their Twitter. My biography had such a disclaimer which said: “The views expressed here are Andy’s and not necessarily those of BHT”. Why I felt it necessary to write about myself in the third person, I don’t know. I set up my own account unlike the CEO of another charity (not local) whose PR team would not give him the password to his own Twitter account. This caused no end of amusement when that became public knowledge.

So today I changed my twitter profile. Gone is reference in the third person, and as for the disclaimer, I have changed it to: “The views expressed here are probably not those of BHT other than tweets relating to Stoke City which are all official BHT policy”.  It is about as valid as any other worthless disclaimer!

Twitter, who I am following, emails, and some shameless self-promotion

Do you, like me, sometimes pretend to know what people are saying when in fact you don’t?  I find this happens often on social media which can be fast moving and I find myself running just to stand still.

I don’t really get LinkedIn, I keep up with my daughter and nieces (I have no nephews) through Facebook, and feel out of my depth with most other social media. But I love Twitter. Some people liken Twitter to another email inbox. It is nothing like that. While emails demand and consume, Twitter feeds and inspires. While emails are a burden, Twitter is an inspiration.

I used to read two or three newspapers a day, now the only daily I read is the wonderful Brighton Argus. People criticise the Argus, but we would sorely miss it if it was not there. The cause for turning my back on daly papers is Twitter. I get far more information through Twitter, access to good writing, and most of all, I am entertained.

I follow too many people. It is said that it is possible to effectively follow a maximum of 150 people. I know I skim read my Twitter feed but there are those Brighton folk whose posts I always read including @Tony_Mernagh @huxley06 @robert_nemeth @ridgwaytim @brightonargus @BHcitynews @ChSuptBartlett @LisaSaysThis @ValeriePearce @RichDB_Brighton @IanChisnall @MelitaRadio @OurDaughtersUK @AMOQI @bonettpa @ArgusBizness and, in the interest of political balance, @chrishawtree @CoxGraham and @ThePennyDrops as well as my 45 or so @bht_sussex colleagues who are on Twitter. An absolute delight is @davemarthur who invariably makes me laugh or otherwise reminds me of my political roots. Apologies to those I have not mentioned – the list was getting rather long.

Being followed by famous people can be very flattering until you realise that three of the ‘big names’ who follow me follow thousands, even tens of thousands of people. I was thrilled when Desmond Tutu followed me. It wasn’t a fake account, it was actually the Tutu Foundation, sadly not the great man himself.

But back to my main point, not keeping up with the jargon. I have sympathy for David Cameron. I too thought LOL was “lots of love” although it is something I have never tweeted, and certainly never to Rebekah Brooks! I regularly RT but I hadn’t realised that I also MT. Apparently I have been MT-ing for months. I learned today that one should insert MT if you have modified a tweet, MT standing for ‘Modified Tweet’.

When I first joined Twitter I didn’t realise that to RT did not imply endorsement although, as was pointed out to me last year, a pattern of RT-ing can convey a message, such as the number of Tweets I re-Tweeted on the impact of welfare reform.

I had hoped that to MT was to offer some kind of endorsement, as in ‘meaningful tweet’. Alas, no. There are some tweets I would like to endorse. I would suggest ET but that acronym has already been taken.

I will continue to RT and try to remember to MT. When I do, it usually implies, but not always, endorsement from me, for what that is worth, which is probably not a lot! If you have yet to join Twitter, delay no more. A good starting place is to follow @AndyWinterBHT. How is that for a shameless bit of self-promotion!

We should all rally together to save the Whitehawk Inn

I recently visited the Whitehawk Inn and spent a couple of hours with its inspirational director, Frances Duncan. To say I was impressed by its range of facilities and achievements would be an understatement. I think it was the best example of what I have seen either locally, nationally or internationally.  I came back to the office saying that the Whitehawk Inn had set the bar impressively high, and that BHT had much to do to catch up!

So it was with huge concern that I read in today’s Argus that its future is in doubt.  Frances says that this “training centre is at serious risk unless we can persuade individuals and businesses across Sussex to support a campaign that could fund many more years of helping people to find confidence and success through learning and work, and make a significant contribution to lowering the county’s unemployment figures.”

The appeal has already had the backing of Des Pritchard (chief fire officer of East Sussex Fire and Rescue) and Chief Inspector Graham Bartlett (Sussex Police’s commander for Brighton and Hove).

Yesterday I was at the City Forum, organised by DemSoc Brighton, where charitable giving to local charities was discussed and some great ideas were put forward.  However, it sounds as though we need to act fast in the case of the Whitehawk Inn.

I fear that the situation facing the Whitehawk Inn is not unique, but I feel very strongly that this resource is particularly important, not least for women in Whitehawk, whose life choices are greatly enhanced by this amazing facility.

For more information please look at http://www.whinn.org.uk/.

The ambition of abstinence is key to tackling drug addiction

This is the text of an article I wrote that first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 21st June 2011 and in Drink and Drug News in July 2011:

In the last week I bumped into two former clients of Brighton Housing Trust’s Recovery Project. The project offers an abstinence based programme which provides a route to life without use of illegal drugs or prescribed substitutes.

Rob (not his real name) is just finishing his final exams at Sussex University. He looked well although stressed and tired due to lack of sleep. The next day I saw Rachel (again not her real name) who spoke about how much she was loving her new job – she had recently been promoted to become a manager within her organisation. I remember her 15 years ago when many would have written her off as another “hopeless junkie”.

One had left the Project four years ago, the other more than a decade ago. They have remained abstinent and have turned their aspirations into reality. Both are happy. Both are an inspiration to me and others, showing that recovery from addiction is possible.

In the same week I read the comments of two leaders in the City with whom I often agree, Caroline Lucas MP, and the head of Brighton police, Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett, who have called for the decriminalisation of drugs and a harm-minimisation, health-based response. They said that “the war on drugs” has failed, that a new approach is needed that looks at the problem from a health perspective, with more prescribing to reduce crime and social dysfunction.

Like them I am deeply concerned about the high death rate of addicts in Brighton and Hove. However, I was frankly depressed by their proposals since (apart from the call for formal decriminalisation of private use) they are simply advocating a view which has dominated government policy since at least 1997. It is a policy that has failed. This policy has seen ever-increasing numbers maintained in drug use, with spiralling costs to addicted individuals and the wider community that cannot be sustained in ethical or economic terms.

The coalition government has signalled a fundamental change in approach, although this has yet to be translated on the ground. It says it wants to change the way drug addiction is tackled, with more people with problems diverted away from prison and into treatment as part of what it calls a “rehabilitation revolution”. Its strategy involves “championing abstinence” and the Department of Health said its aim is to get users “off drugs for good”.  I support all of this.

The Department says the current annual cost of maintaining treatment for 320,000 problem drug users is made up of £1.7bn in benefits, £1.2bn for looking after their children and £730m for prescribing the heroin substitute methadone.

A key issue is one of ambition or rather what can now be seen, in hindsight, as a poverty of ambition. Do we think that it is acceptable to tolerate the £3.6bn now spent on treating users with drug substitutes like methadone and keeping them on benefits each year, not to mention the wasted potential of 320,000 (a conservative estimate) addicts who are maintained in their drug use. Is it acceptable that addicts who wish to be abstinent have for many years now been all too often either denied the detoxification facilities they need or have been actively encouraged to use heroin substitutes?

It is a simple matter of logic that things cannot improve if much of what we do is to maintain people in their addiction. Clients in the Recovery Project testify that, before entering our abstinence programme and when on maintenance scripts, they ‘topped up’ with street drugs. There is also an active market in prescribed drugs which are sold on by addicts supposedly ‘in recovery’. Those addicted in this way may not use or commit crime at the same rate, but they are certainly still stuck in the drug using culture and often acting illegally and destructively.

It is surely ethical that addicted people should be helped to achieve genuine abstinence since it is only when abstinence is achieved that healthy relationships, safe parenting, genuinely secure housing, education, training and employment become viable options.

I fully support the call made by the think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), for “a real transfer of power from large distant organisations to small innovative providers” for

rehabilitation.  I agree that small units such as the Recovery Project have a better chance of getting addicts off drugs completely, not least because they tend to involve abstinent users in the planning and delivery of services.

Kathy Gyngell, from the CPS, said prescribing methadone to addicts delays their recovery. “The state is subsidising people to be any number of years on methadone, which has turned out not to be a cheap option and will only subsidise the tiniest proportion – 2% – to go into a rehabilitation unit that would actually free them from dependency and allow them to live their life.”

The CPS states “There is one simple measure of success: that of six months abstinence from drugs.” As the CEO of an organisation which offers both harm minimisation services and genuinely abstinence-based treatment, I am ambitious on behalf of our clients. I maintain that 6 months abstinence is readily achievable and would go a step further. Treatment providers should be judged on whether the client is genuinely abstinent – from all mood-altering drugs – six months after finishing treatment.

 Recovery from addiction is possible. Those of us involved in policy making, commissioning services and delivering treatment for addicts have an ethical duty to offer safe care to using addicts, but to ensure that treatment leads, in each and every case, to abstinence. Too many lives depend on it.