Addiction: The Case For Recovery In A Climate Of Restricted Resources

"Peter is a gifted speaker in HMP Prisons, Rehabiltation Centres and Sec Schools. He shares from his personal dramatic life experiences that led him off track from in his teenage years.

Peter was brought up on the tough council estates of Northern England. There was no escape from violence, drugs, drink, gambling and a life of crime. At one year old Peter was seriously burnt in a house fire, at 15 He was stabbed by a gang of youths and at 24 the victim of an hit and run where He was left for dead in the middle of the road. If all this wasn't enough Peter's dad committed suicide at the age of 49.

With no escape from the pains of the past in Nov 1989 Peter stood on North Bridge in Halifax with thoughts of suicide. However He stood back and visited his mums flat just up the road from this bridge. It was there that Peter heard a message via a telephone call from his sister that has totally transformed his life.

Since that time Peter has gone on to graduate at Regents Theology College written two published best selling books, worked with The National Probation Service England and Wales in Youth Offending Teams, HMP Prisons and Crown Court Services. Today Peter travels the world sharing a message of Hope that there is no setback in life that cannot be overcome.

Chief Executive at Changing Lives

The Stephen Bell story is one of pride because I know that everything that has happened to me has made me a better person.

I realised one day that my personal experiences in life could help others. My time in the British Army and Police, in life-threatening and often extremely hostile situations, had given me a unique set of personal tools. Something I could draw on to help others to cope with the challenging lives we all can lead.

If you know that you want to get some help working through some of your battles, then call me today.

My unique training style and programmes were created to help people like you so that you can face up to life’s challenges.

It’s taken me a long time to understand what makes Stephen Bell tick. Growing up and understanding that at times life may get difficult was what my childhood was all about. You see we didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t have fancy cars. However, we did have the drive to be successful and improve ourselves. That was a better “drive” altogether.

Now I’m not talking about being amazing at school, but being the best person I could be, with the knowledge I had at that time. Then using that life skill to drive and develop myself and continually push me forward to achieve great things.

Changing Lives through effective recovery focused services

Deputy Chief Executive

Laura is responsible for leading strategy, business and service development, data and digital transformation. Laura ensures our organisation and service delivery can evolve and respond to changing needs and expectations, and take advantage of new technologies.

Laura was previously Chief Digital Officer at Citizens Advice. Over four years she led policy, news, communications and digital to strengthen the charity’s impact, and redesign and improve services to reach more people. Previously Laura worked at Nesta and the RSA. She started her career in research with the think tank Demos.

Laura is also a Trustee at The Samaritans.

Director of ConnectFutures

Zubeda is a founding director of ConnectFutures. She previously worked for over 15 years in the public sector as a senior member in a wide variety of local, national and pan-European policy-orientated projects on topics such as extremism, equalities and leadership innovation. She developed an operational accredited mentoring programme on behalf of statutory agencies and partners for individuals vulnerable to violent extremism during a two-year assignment with West Midlands Police Counter Terrorism Unit, and worked for Birmingham City Council delivering aspects of the Prevent strategy from 2007.

Zubeda is a current EU RAN expert. She is the author of Education and Radicalisation Prevention: Different ways governments can support schools and teachers in P/CVE with Professor Lynn Davies (2019), “Counter-terrorism as conflict transformation (Routledge, 2014) and Formers and Families -transitional journeys and out of violent extremism in the UK (European Commission, 2015). She is a Clore Social Fellow (2014/15), an alumni of the IVLP programme (Dept of State, USA) and was invited to the White House Countering Violent Extremism (President Obama) summit in Washington in February 2015 as a result of the specialist work of ConnectFutures in developing community and schools based programmes. She graduated from the University of Manchester with a BA in Politics and Modern History and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: ZubedaCFutures