UKRF Wiredin Conflict

I thought I'd just put up a quick blog to provide a little clarification for those who have been following the issue of 'ownership' that we raised with Wiredin. We (first Alistair Sinclair then myself and others) simply asked; who 'owns' wiredin. For the detail on this please see this blog 


http://wiredtruth.blogspot.com/


generated by somebody else (and I assure you, it is someone else) with similar concerns to us. When Alistair's blog (and we don’t know who it is) in which he raised the 'ownership' question) and comments was removed and when we, with others, found ourselves censored we started using twitter and face book to continue to ask questions. This is a link to David Clark's blog on Wiredin today:

http://wiredin.org.uk/blogs/entry/10823/an-important-statement/

Whilst this is upsetting we will continue to seek clarity about David Clark's private company Wired In Ltd.


We will not enter into 'mud-slinging' and personal attacks. 

  

We attempted to resolve the questions we had with David Clark (Director Wiredin) and Michaela Jones (Editor Wiredin) and, having failed to receive a clear answer as to Wiredin's ownership, we raised the question yesterday with Wiredin Stakeholders. We were not totally comfortable with this course of action, mindful of the wider implications for the UK Recovery Community, but felt we have no other route left open to us.

We did this because, as Wiredin Community members, we felt it was reasonable to enquire as to the status of Wiredin. We cared about it.

On the 15th of March this year a new Wiredin community member (‘marcymarcymarc’) asked in a blog on Wiredin whether Wiredin was “profit making or recovery based”. Michaela Jones responded to this saying:

“Wired In is a charity so is not profit making and any funds go into running and developing the community.”

This comment concerned us as we were unclear as to whether Wiredin actually was a charity. 


So we asked for clarification. The 1st response we received from David Clarke was not clear and raised further questions. It 'appeared' from David Clark's response that Wiredin was owned by his private company. So we asked for further clarification as did others. We did not cast 'aspersions'. We continued to ask questions. We were then censored, as were others, and the blog in which we raised the question was removed from Wiredin. We continued to ask questions. This time in emails sent to David Clark and Michaela Jones. We got no response. So we wrote yesterday to the Wiredin Advisory Board and the website sponsors raising the questions with them. We thought that if Wiredin is owned by a private company (and David Clark's blog today again 'appears' to suggest that) then it should not describe itself as a charity. That is our concern, we believed it was a charity. Nothing else.     

We haven’t necessarily got a problem with private enterprise. There are many private companies that provide useful services, jobs and valuable social functions. We would just expect a private company to clearly identify itself as such. We would expect a company that grows through the contributions of unpaid community members (and asks donations of them) to be clear as to what it is. We would expect a 'recovery-oriented' company (private, voluntary or social enterprise) to be open and transparent in all its dealings. We would expect a recovery-oriented company to be open to questions and challenge. We would expect it to respond to questions and challenges without resorting to personal attacks on those who raise them. We are upset with the response we have received. It's been a tough day.

   

We will continue to ask questions and we'll keep you updated on where we end up.

We make the path by walking it. (some days trudging it).

Bill White interviews Me, can you believe it.

http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/pr/2011%20Scotland%20Anne%20Marie%20Ward.pdf

It starts off


In 2009, I had the pleasure of lecturing in London and Scotland on the New Recovery Advocacy Movement in The United States. During that trip, I met a number of professionals interested in increasing the recovery orientation of the UK treatment system, and I also met many members of a growing UK recovery advocacy community. One of the more memorable of these encounters was with Anne Marie Ward, who I suspected would develop into one of the most dynamic leaders of the UK recovery movement. In the time that has passed since my visit, that presentiment has proven to be correct. In early 2011, I interviewed Anne Marie about her advocacy activities and her thoughts on the history and future of the UK recovery movement. Please join us in what I found to be a most fascinating discussion.


Bill White: Anne Marie, perhaps we should begin by having you introduce yourself to our readers and share how you came to be involved in the recovery movement in the UK.


Anne Marie Ward: Sure, Bill. As a person in long-term recovery, I began about 9 years ago in a professional role to explore how local statutory services could be more involved in helping individuals and families who were suffering from addiction. Part of my role then was to develop a forum whereby service providers could discuss with those they were supposed to serve various issues that the statutory services felt were important. It quickly became apparent that the two groups couldn’t be further apart in what they each identified as important. The beginning of my role as an advocate began from my experience in that role, witnessing people’s voices not being heard, and the powerlessness they expressed. During my time in this role bringing various providers of services together, it was also very clear that providers worked in competition, isolation, and even in conflict with each other. They were often unaware of what each organisation provided, which was a great hindrance to people accessing the services they needed.

Please click on the link to Bills site to see the rest and other interviews, more from the UK coming soon !