'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.'

Our ethos

The Build on Belief ethos is the simplest of things really, best framed thus: 'We are service users, we are family.' Our own evidence base and collective life experience tells us that most of us, staff, volunteers and service users have little in the way of traditional family relationships and struggle to find a place in the world where we feel that we belong, where being 'who we are' is good enough.

We are firmly committed to the belief that anyone, irrespective of their substance use histories, physical and mental health problems, or previous life experiences can, with the right support find a sense of purpose, improve their health and well-being and achieve an improved quality of life. 

Build on Belief sees each of its projects and every single activity we provide as a loose knit family for people who wish to recover from their difficulties with substance use. In order to achieve this, we strive to maintain and build on the following values. 

Our values

  • We do not differentiate between those still struggling with their substance use and those who are abstinent when it comes to the individuals accessing our services.
  • Our services will be free to access for any individual who is, or has struggled with their substance use, providing they can manage their behaviour.
  • Our services will always be designed and run by the local community in which they operate.
  • We do not follow, promote or recommend one method of recovery over another, but consider all models to be equally valid and an individual choice.
  • We will strive to support each individual to achieve 'recovery' in the manner they choose to define it, whether or not it fits with our own personal definitions of 'recovery'.
  • We will always strive to promote internally, irrespective of whether the role is paid or voluntary. After all, if you are prepared to volunteer your time and commitment to the charity, then you should have the first chance at paid employment. We consider this to be good ethics. 
  • Providing someone is not a danger to themselves or others, we will always find a role for someone who wishes to volunteer with us. 
  • As a peer-led charity, we will take each volunteer's situation, recovery, skills, personality and education into account at all times, and will place their well-being over the needs of the charity. The well-being and personal development of our volunteers shall be considered as equally important as those of the service users accessing our projects.
  • We will continue to innovate and experiment with our service provision, in the belief that nothing is perfect and everything can be improve. We recognise that failure is sometimes a part of this process. 
  • Our services are not intended to compete with, or replace treatment providers. It is our desire to work in close partnership with all local agencies to the benefit of local service users. Our role is to expand treatment provision outside of the traditional remit, not to replicate existing services.