31 Dec 2025
As 2025 draws to a close, we want to take a moment to say a huge THANK YOU to our staff, volunteers, partners, supporters – and everyone who has played their part in Forward’s successes this year!
This annual review is a month-by-month snapshot of 2025, capturing key moments that have helped us to support over 35,000 people – 3,000 more than last year and our highest ever reach.
With your help, Forward is able to provide even more services to support people in their recovery from substance use addiction, leave behind crime, re-integrate with their families/friends, find employment and learn new vocational skills, and find safe housing.
Most importantly, our work helps people to rediscover their self-esteem and realise that they matter – that their lives are worth living.
If you feel inspired by our work and want to set up a regular donation – whatever you can afford – you can do this via our secure Raisely platform.
Remember that can always find out for yourself what you think were our key highlights! Take a look at our website(s) for The Forward Trust and Taking Action on Addiction, our social media platforms (see icons below), and follow our thought-leadership podcast Leading Forward on Soundcloud.
JanuaryWe started 2025 the best way we know how – with our annual National Reunion event in London. Welcoming Forward alumni, staff, current clients and partners into one space to celebrate recovery, reconnection and shared progress. Powerful stories of transformation took centre stage, like Lindsey's below, reminding us why community sits at the heart of everything we do - and why we are doing it again (24 January) in 2026. January was also a powerful month for our Family Support and Specialist Programmes, with the launch of the Recovering Families UK (RFUK) Online Programme. This was our first ever online group programme for adult family members affected by someone else’s addiction — and the response was overwhelming, with over 200 referrals since launch. A huge step forward in reducing isolation and building support beyond geography. There was also a compelling blog by Abbie MacGregor, Community Service Development Manager, about one of our partnership projects in East Kent to support the local homeless community - which provides both a hot meal for those in need and a soft-entry/signposting opportunity for people interested in seeking further support. This compassionate initiative is part of our East Kent community drug and alcohol services, which Forward has delivered in region since 2017. The Breakfast and Dinner clubs are funded specifically by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) via Kent County Council. We marked ‘Remembrance Month’ with a 'Day of Remembrance' for staff from across the organisation to honour the memory of those we’ve lost to addiction. This awareness month not only highlights the importance of our work, it also provides a stark reminder of how devastating it can be to lose someone we know. FebruaryIn February, we announced the appointment of longstanding Forward Ambassador and football legend Tony Adams MBE as our new Chair of Trustees. Tony replaced The Right Honourable David Bernstein, who stepped down after 12 years incredibly successful years of service. Tony kicked off his chairmanship with a roadshow of visits around some of Forward’s prison and community-based services with our CEO, Mike Trace. They spent the day at our Thanet Hub, meeting staff and gaining an insight into our substance use and employment support services. This was followed by a networking event, hosted by ROAR Kent, at Margate FC. Our work reached national airwaves as we were chosen to launch our own BBC Radio 4 'Charity Appeal'. Our Clouds House graduate Melissa shared her deeply moving personal story, helping raise awareness — and vital funds — while reinforcing the message that recovery is possible with the right support The month also shone a light on early intervention. The launch of the Royal Foundation’s ‘Shaping Us Framework’ highlighted the importance of emotional and social development in early childhood. We were proud that our Head of Family Support and Specialist Programmes, Katherine Jenkins, supported this work as a member of the study advisory group. We also celebrated 20 Years of SHARP in Liverpool (Self Help Addiction Referral Programme) where our new Chair of Trustees Tony Adams, was able to join us for this small celebration event and meet local stakeholders at a special evening event at The Brink (our community hub a few streets away). MarchHMP Millsike, a new prison facility in York, was publicly launched by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in partnership with Mitie. In time, the prison aims to deliver an enhanced rehabilitation programme for prisoners – with Forward delivering a range of specilaist support programmes in the areas of substance use, employment and family support to help reduce reoffending and reduce prison-related harms. National Careers Week (3-8 March), was one of many highlights from our Employment Services year. These impactful services deliver tailored, compassionate support for people rebuilding their lives — particularly those furthest from the labour market – as documented by our Operational Manager for Employment Services, Emma Woodward, in her amazing blog. Our CEO Mike Trace spoke to Times Radio in response to the publication of the Home Office Wastewater Analysis Programme (WWAP) that showed an 85% increase in ketamine consumption in England and Scotland. In the second Chair’s roadshow visit, Tony and Mike received a warm Welsh welcome when the met staff and clients on our Incentivised Substance Free Living wing operated in HMP Cardiff and Camau probation accommodation service. AprilApril was a month of ideas and innovation. Our much-loved Dragons’ Den-style event returned, celebrating the creativity and determination of entrepreneurs supported through our services. Three amazing entrepreneurs, supported by our Enterprise Bootcamp programme and funded by the City Bridge Foundation, competed to wow the judges with their business pitches – with Adetola delighted to be announced as the winner! Preceding the above, we also held our first Media Breakfast event at The Financial Times HQ in London. We were delighted to bring subject experts and media representatives together to discuss addiction in the full-sense – from its devastating impact on families, drug-related deaths and the media coverage that can play an enormous role in reshape narratives in their reporting. It felt like an important event that really enabled Forward to introduce our work – and our campaigns including Taking Action on Addiction and More Than My Past - to researchers and journalists alike. Following the media breakfast, our supporter Deborah Casserly spoke to The Independent about her son Barney who died as a result of Ketamine addiction. We were also pleased to announce that we were commissioned by NHS England in East of England to expand our impactful RECONNECT service further across the region in Norfolk, Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, and Suffolk.
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Recovery Month in September saw the launch of our new mini campaign platform - Road to Recovery - inviting people to share milestones, memories and moments of progress. It’s a powerful reminder that recovery is often about taking one step forward - and how the ripple effect of recovery can motivate someone else to start theirs! As part of our ongoing work to improve access to our support, we were delighted to publish some very promising findings from a digital inclusion scheme in East Kent, Medway and Southend. Working in partnership with The Good Things Foundation, clients reported how much their lives had improved by having a smartphone and internet connectivity, with one of our Ashford hub clients beaming: “My phone and internet are working great! I’ve started using it to reconnect with my family, and I’ve realised it has taken up much of my time that I’ve forgotten about alcohol. Thank you, Forward.” September was the month we issued The Journey magazine, a co-produced client-led publication which provides a creative and vocal outlet for prisoners to share their poetry, art and stories with the wider community. This month’s Chair’s Roadshow visit took Tony and Mike to Hull to meet staff and clients from our Bridges residential rehab and Renew community services. The visit which was featured on ITV Calendar also heard from our amazing Bridges graduate Laura. A group of nine incredible staff and volunteers also took a leap from the skies to raise funds to support our work. OctoberInternally, we celebrated our people. Our Employee Resource Group (ERG) Members Day, hosted at the Financial Times headquarters, brought ERG leads, members and executive sponsors together in person for the first time. It was a day of recognition, learning and renewed energy — and a proud moment for our organisation-wide commitment to inclusion. The Bridges, our residential rehabilitation centre in Hull, was thrilled to gain a ‘Good’ overall rating following its most recent Quality Commission (CQC) inspection. Fresh from a visit to the UK’s first legal consumption room in Glasgow, in his reflective podcast our CEO Mike Trace explored the complexity of this new approach - outlining the pros and cons of how these might evolve across the UK. Mike also responded to the publication of Office of National Statistics that revealed a decade long increase of drug related deaths, involving an ever widening cocktail of potent street drugs. This led to follow-up interviews with the Independent and Channel 4 News. NovemberAddiction Awareness Week (23-30 November) provided a number of impressive highlights for Forward. This year’s theme was to ‘Get The Nation Talking’ and we asked our followers on social media to share their ‘Conversation That Changed Everything’ - with Tony Adams’ video of his ‘Conversation' has now reached over 1 million plays! We were really proud of this year’s campaign with key highlights including an exclusive new message of support from our Royal Patron, HRH, The Princess of Wales, support from public figures like Ant & Dec, Alistair Campbell, Bryony Gordon and Lily Allen, plus mainstream media coverage on BBC News, Sky, and Channel 5 News. Put together, this campaign did so much to help shape a healthier narrative about addiction – reducing the stigma for everyone that needs support. Elsewhere and on the subject of support, we were pleased to launch a new specialist accredited programme, ‘Group Supervision Training by Addiction Professionals’. Therapists, counsellors and healthcare professionals can still book onto this important CPD programme. Mike Trace was also able to speak with the Big Issue about the drugs crisis in prisons and the rise in deaths of people following their release. DecemberAs the year drew to a close, we launched our Christmas Appeal: Turn an Empty House into a Home. For people moving into their first home after experiences of addiction, crime or homelessness, arriving with very little can be overwhelming. Housing Packs help provide dignity, comfort and a sense of belonging — and remain a vital part of our support. You can still donate to this worthy campaign via our Raisely platform. Mike Trace was interviewed by Drink & Drugs News saying that a “rethink on prison drug treatment is desperately overdue.” Elsewhere, we were delighted that our Restart scheme colleague, Abby Mitchell, was a finalist in the Employer Engagement Practitioner category at this year’s Employability Awards 2025, organised by ERSA. You can find out more about Abby’s work that led to her nomination in this interesting blog. In the final few days of December, we still continued to push and promote our work in the media. Bridges graduate Sarah spoke to ITV Calendar news about the support she had during the festive period last year while at our residential rehab in Hull. Sid Singh, Services Manager at The Forward Trust and Navraj Dhesi, founder of No More Pretending spoke to Asian Voice to highlight how addiction still sadly remains a taboo subject in many South Asian communities. Sid's experience helps to give some practical steps and tips for to protect sobriety during the holidays - a challenging period for some. Looking Ahead to 2026With 2026 just a few hours away, we’re really excited for January in which our upcoming plans for the weeks ahead! We’ll be marking Remembrance Month 2026 by inviting supporters to honour loved ones who are no longer with us and help bring hope into the new year. We’re also excited to be counting down to our National Reunion on 24 January 2026 in Hackney, London — another chance to reconnect, celebrate recovery and start the year together. Our next sober comedy gig - in support of Taking Action on Addiction - is on Sunday 25 January at The Backyard, Bethnal Green, London. Claim a 20% exclusive discount by using 'Forward20' in the booking link. From all of us at Forward and our campaign, Taking Action on Addiction, thank you for being part of 2025 — and here’s to 2026 💛 |
