Addiction isn’t a choice, people get stuck, and they are often kept there by fear. Help is out there – it’s about accepting it and making changes for yourself. Nicole, More Than My Past
At The Forward Trust, we provide treatment, recovery and rehabilitation services for individuals. Taking a whole family approach when designing and delivering these services can better support improvements to the lives of the individuals affected by these issues. The chances of long-term recovery and rehabilitation are increased if we involve a person’s whole family or support system.
However, it is also vitally important to recognise the significant impact that someone else’s addiction and imprisonment has on their family members and others involved in their life.
Family members and affected others should be supported in their own right. They should be provided with dedicated support services which help them to manage and cope with the personal impact of someone else’s addiction and imprisonment. Our family support therefore provides services for individuals, their wider families and the children, young people and adults they are connected to.
It is also important to acknowledge that people define ‘family’ differently. Family life has changed significantly and is no longer determined by biology or marriage.
At The Forward Trust, we define family as a group of two or more individuals whose relationship plays a significant role in their lives. We recognise the value and complexity of family and understand the potential positive – and negative – impact of relationships.
We believe it is up to each individual to define who their family is – and where they ‘belong’ best. We all hold our own unique version of what our family looks like.
Our family support work aims to strengthen relationships and interpersonal connections, so every person feels safe, supported and valued by the people they surround themselves with.
We take a ‘Whole Family Approach’ to recovery and rehabilitation, supporting clients and family members through the delivery of specialist one-to-one and group support.
In short, this means that our family work aims to strengthen relationships and interpersonal connections, so every person feels safe, supported and valued by the people they surround themselves with.
Read more about our ‘Whole Family Approach’.
Our expertise in whole family recovery and rehabilitation is informed and improved by our involvement in wider initiatives and collaborative working with experts from the UK, Europe, and the US in the field of family addiction support.
Our lead in this area of work, Head of Family Support and Specialist Programmes, Katherine Jenkins, contributed to a significant international framework launched in 2025 by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood. The framework puts a much-needed spotlight on the development of essential social and emotional skills in early childhood.
In her own words, HRH The Princess of Wales, our patron and founder of the Centre for Early Childhood, says:
“Our first five years lay important foundations for our future selves. This period is when we first learn to manage our emotions and impulses, to care and to empathise, and thus ultimately to establish healthy relationships with ourselves and others ... Indeed, what shapes our childhood shapes the adults and the parents we become.”
At Forward, we provide a range of support for families to help people navigate the emotional, relational and practical challenges that come with a loved one’s recovery. Our work includes:
We design and develop specialised programmes informed by evidence and robust frameworks, which focus on supporting individuals and whole families impacted by addiction and offending. Our expert team has a broad range of academic and therapeutic experience from counselling to psychology, academia and research.
Some interventions are available as licensed programmes. We can train your staff to deliver them in your area, helping to support more individuals and families through addiction support programmes around the UK, Ireland and internationally.
We also provide professional training on a number of core areas to organisations wishing to improve their knowledge and understanding of addiction and offending, whole family approaches and the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
Our programmes include:
While we place great value and focus on continually developing our own work – and extending its reach to more people – we are actively involved in strategic partnerships and collaborations with like-minded organisations.
We strongly believe in our programmes and support work because through our comprehensive evaluations, they are shown to work in real-life, time and time again. Investing our time and expertise in related projects and programmes who share the same goals as Forward only serves to benefit even more recipients of this support. We also enjoy helping other practitioners with tools and insights so they can enhance positive outcomes for the people they support.
Examples of partnerships we have been involved with are below:
Shaping Us Framework - our Head of Family Support and Specialist Programmes, Katherine Jenkins, contributed to a significant new, international framework launched by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood (CfEC) in 2025. Read more about this important work.
Taking Action on Addiction (TAOA) is a national campaign that seeks to improve everyone's understanding of addiction and to end the stigma that surrounds it - and sometimes. Our campaign calls for addiction to be treated as a serious mental health condition with increased access to support so that recovery can be possible for everyone. Read more about this campaign.