Nearly £20,000 seized from drug dealers is heading to substance abuse awareness charity Evolve.
Every year, thousands of pounds of dirty cash is seized from criminals selling drugs and spreading misery in our communities. After this money is seized by police, courts normally order its forfeiture, before it used to be directed back into Home Office funds.
Liverpool Crown Court judges decided these funds should be sent directly to local charities, with a different one selected each month. The groundbreaking initiative applies to smaller amounts of money, forfeited under Section 27 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
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But added together, the total of orders judges made in March in favour of Wirral-based Evolve added up to £19,263.31. The ECHO can also reveal the next organisation to benefit is Liverpool suicide prevention charity James' Place.
Evolve was set up to tackle substance abuse in the community and to raise awareness of the dangers of former legal highs. It was co-founded by counsellor and educator Alison Hodgson and former nurse Barbara Skinner, MBE.
Ms Skinner founded a successful volatile substance abuse (VSA) charity in 1989 following the death of her 16-year-old son, Darren, due to VSA. She became its CEO and worked tirelessly to prevent VSA until her 'retirement' in 2012.
Ms Hodgson has spent many years working in the field of VSA and has personal experience of the consequences of substance abuse when she learned of her 23-year-old nephew's drug-related murder in 2007. In early 2012, she further experienced the consequences of former legal highs when her 14-year-old great nephew was hospitalised due to drug abuse.
As a result they launched Evolve, which offers education, early intervention, counselling and family support programmes around substance misuse. You can find out more about Evolve, based at Beaconsfield Community House in Rock Ferry, at http://www.evolvenorthwest.com/
James' Place has been named as the charity to benefit from money seized from drug dealers in April. It can already bank on £4,000 coming its way, which a judge seized from gun thug and drug dealer Lewis Fitzpatrick earlier this week.
James' Place supports men over the age of 18 who are experiencing a suicidal crisis, by providing quick access to therapy and support. Its free of charge service includes one-to-one talking therapy with specially trained therapists in a warm and safe environment at a centre in the Georgian Quarter.
Anyone can refer themselves, or someone they are concerned about, to their services. Since opening in 2018, James' Place has engaged with more than 800 men offering support and advice and completed more than 450 interventions.
In November, the ECHO reported how James' Place was helping to prevent men dying by suicide, according to a report by Liverpool John Moores University. The report stated: "Outcomes identified clearly demonstrate that James' Place is making a life-changing difference to individuals (and) their families."
James' Place was founded by Clare Milford Haven and Nick Wentworth-Stanley, following the tragic loss of their son, James, in 2006, aged 21. James went looking for someone to talk to about suicidal thoughts but didn't find the urgent help he desperately needed.
Jane Boland, head of James' Place Liverpool and clinical lead, said: "Our aim is to help men in Liverpool who find themselves in a suicidal crisis. Suicide remains the biggest killer of men under 50 in this country.
"We know males in Merseyside can suffer with feelings of suicide due to varying factors such as relationship breakdowns, housing and financial worries. We've been able to offer our unique intervention to so many men in the borough shows that our service is vital to the good work being done to combat growing concerns around men taking their lives throughout the country".
You can find out more about James' Place at https://www.jamesplace.org.uk or call the charity on 0151 303 5757, from Monday to Friday, between 9.30am and 5.30pm.
