Johnson Astills funds accredited therapy training to help fight addiction at The Carpenter’s Arms

Vital accredited therapy training has been delivered at The Carpenter’s Arms thanks to funding from local legal firm Johnson Astills as part of their charity-of-the-year commitment.

Solicitor Jasmine Lees and Trainee Solicitor Jenny Jackson were invited along to the charity’s Six Hills property near Melton Mowbray to meet support workers who have benefitted from training in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT) which each offer appropriate challenges to behaviours associated with addiction.

CEO of The Carpenter’s Arms, Richard Spence, said: “There’s no statutory requirement for addiction recovery centres like ours to offer accredited therapy training like CBT, DBT or SFT. We knew, however, how transformative these techniques would be for our support workers to guide residents through some of the challenges that come hand in hand with addiction such as managing negative thoughts and intense emotions, handling crises and accepting change. We’re thrilled that Johnson Astills have supported us in implementing this learning and look forward to updating them every month on the ongoing impact of their commitment.”

Jasmine said: “It’s often the case that clients struggling with substance misuse would not have found themselves in the justice system had they been sufficiently supported in the community. We’ve seen firsthand the work of The Carpenter’s Arms in helping to break this cycle and the accredited therapy training will only strengthen their work. It was really interesting to hear the Support team explain where the training has had an immediate impact in their sessions with residents – whether that be helping them unpack why they think as they do, encouraging them to see things from perspectives other than their own, or not to get stuck in what has happened in the past but how to focus, through a ladder technique, on goals for the future.”

Johnson Astills’s visit coincided with a ceremony to plant 15 fruit trees at The Carpenter’s Arms’s Malone Meadows, another donation that has been made possible by the legal firm’s sponsorship this year. The farm-to-fork project has attracted support from many other local businesses too, including Sulney Nursery in Melton Mowbray, supplier of the fruit trees, who kindly gifted a honeysuckle climber to attract insects and offer a shaded area in the summer months for the resident chickens.

A reel of the tree planting can be accessed here: https://youtube.com/shorts/HBLMQWse3Ik