The Walk to Freedom believes in its services and we challenge some of the more dated approaches to drug and/or alcohol dependency, training and adolescent antisocial behaviour in relation to serious youth violence, gang exploitation, knife crime and adolescent drug abuse. The Walk To Freedom is in a class of its own in delivering a quality service to the local community and nationwide based on the needs of its clients, not on what we think they need. Referrals are received from the youth offender and probation services, education authorities, corporate employers and self referrals. We were founded in 2011 and are run by a team of highly trained and qualified staff, many of whom are able to draw upon personal experience of conquering dependency. Indeed, our team's capacity to directly empathise with the complex challenges facing users provides our programmes with a unique. perspective. Our youth services work closely with referrals from the Children in Care Services, Education Authorities as well as the Youth Offending and Probation Services. Our operations centre is in central Luton and our services have nationwide coverage.
We have also successfully seen young people returned to full time education, employment, a number of young people exit from antisocial behaviour, gang and knife crime and we have had a very high success rate in young people who have stopped using recreational drugs or the abuse of them through our back door approach to substance misuse. Where there has been situations of early pregnancy we have also supported young people through their drug use successfully that their babies were born healthy. Every single ex offender that we have supported has being reported to never have offended again thus far. Being that we work with the social services and other council run youth services reports and updates are always updated on clients who leave our programme for up to or over a year. Over its 9 year history the Walk to Freedom has seen over 30 people find their total freedom from substance abuse as well.
By thinking differently with our newly designed and innovative programmes, workshops and mentoring, The Walk To Freedom is in a class of its own delivering a quality service to the local community and nationwide based on the needs of its clients, not on what we think they need. From living in a domestically violent home to a life as a career criminal
Mark Clarke, founding CEO, finally ended up having to struggle with the challenges of drug dependency for more than 20 years. He suffered in many ways, sometimes finding himself in prison or on a psychiatric ward. Finally, Mark found freedom during an intensive 16-month rehabilitation programme, which led to him discovering a passion to draw upon his experience to help others. Mark’s subsequent research and training led to him to working alongside drug and alcohol users to develop a pioneering approach to recovery that is focused on understanding the complexities of dependency from the user’s perspective. As a result, Mark and his team have been able to help hundreds of users by enabling them to explore the question: ‘Why do I use when I don’t want to use?’ Answering this question – with bravery and honesty – is often the first significant step in the walk to freedom.
The Walk to Freedoms Kingdom Ethos is to think community and build globally where in our future plans we will continue to work with Green Pastures in providing homes for those living homeless by setting up more supported accommodation. This is the vision of the Walk to Freedom to continue to follow God's plan by being obedient to His call and knowing that we serving his divine will.