The Amy Winehouse Foundation has announced the opening of Amy’s Place, a center to help women recover from alcohol and drug addiction, located in London. It will receive up to 16 women at the same time.
The directors of the foundation decided to honor Winehouse’s legacy by opening a women-only recovery facility, for alcohol and drug addicts who want to overcome addiction. Amy’s Place will pay special attention to sobriety, a fundamental aspect related to the recovery process. The center’s facilities are optimized to helping women in rehab. The safe living space would ensure a successful ending of the treatment.
Amy’s Place
After spending some time in recovery, Dominic Ruffy, the Amy Winehouse Foundation’s special projects director, told The Guardian that staying away from drugs and alcohol is not the hard part of being in rehab. He added that learning how to live sober should be the most important part of every recovery process.
“Our experience shows if you give people an extended period of time post-traditional rehabilitation treatment, you will improve the percentage of people who stay clean [in the] long term. We have a saying in recovery that the drink and drugs aren’t our problem, it’s living life clean and sober,” said Ruffy.
Women-only recovery centers providing housing are fundamental because they ensure women’s protection from ex-partners or any dependency on men that can negatively interfere their recovery process.
Ruffy pointed out that women-specific services are usually limited in rehab. He added that there are only a few women-only rehab centers and just one women-only recovery house in London. The latter has a six-month waiting list and space for only four beds.
Located in East London, Amy’s Place will open doors on Monday. The facility comprises 12 self-contained apartments that can accommodate up to 16 women aged 18 to 30. During a three-month program, women in the center will receive holistic yoga classes, relapse-prevention counseling, and employment skills workshops.
The primary goal is not only helping women to detox from substances. The organization also seeks to instruct them about how to develop skills to live a drug-free life outside the program.
Winehouse’s legacy
It’s been five years since the tragic death of Amy Winehouse on July 23, 2011, when the songwriter suffered from an accidental alcohol poisoning. Winehouse passed away at her London residence when she was just 27 years old. Since then, her family has conducted several efforts to honor her legacy and convictions.
A few months after Amy’s death, her family set up the Amy Winehouse Foundation, a charity center located in England that helps young addicts looking for a transition to get back in society. The foundation was launched on September 14, 2011, which would have been Amy’s 28th birthday.
The Amy Winehouse Foundation provides frontline support to young people with drug and alcohol abuse problems. It also works alongside other charitable organizations. The foundation has three major axes. The first one is to educate young people about the effects of drug and alcohol abuse and support them through their recovery process.
The second ax, is focused on the most vulnerable victims of substances’ addiction, those who are in disadvantage or at high risk of substance misuse. The third one is to support the program’s participants throughout the music.
On March 12, 2013, the Foundation launched the Amy Winehouse Foundation Resilience Programme For Schools as a partnership with Hollywood star and ex-addict, Russell Brand. The program is centered on effective education around drugs and alcohol. It also provides aid to secondary school students across the U.K.
Amy’s Yard is another project and main ax of the foundation. On September 14, 2015, the Amy Winehouse Foundation launched its first album titled Amy’s Yard-The Sessions: Volume 1. The album comes after the foundation created a studio for participants who do not count with the financial support to record their talent in a professional studio.
This year, the foundation tackled another of its main focus: vulnerable people. With Amy’s place, the charity aims to provide help to women who are sometimes victims not only of substances’ abuse but also of their environment.
Source: E! News