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Community connection What connects an individual with a community? In an age where social connections can appear as easy as clicking onto a social networking site, we don't like to admit that isolation and lonliness is a factor in many of our most challenging social issues. As a community development agency we believe in enabling people to act together to create positive solutions to their experiences.  Yet our work at the front end of trying to help people achieve social justice forces us to recognise that some individuals experience a deep sense of lonliness and otherness that is not resolved simply by engaging them in social or community groups - if they can be persuaded to set foot over the threshold in the first place. Read the Full Story
Dana's Story   Dana became involved with Comas' Resilient Parent project because her children had been taken into care. Desperate to regain custody of her children, Dana realised that now at the age of 23, she was in danger of having her children repeat her own childhood experience. Dana had also been in care from an early age and had lost both parents by the time she was a teenager. She had never learned to trust or belong in a family, yet had her first child by the time she was 17. Dana was trying to escape from a disastrous relationship and dependency on drugs, in order to rebuild her life and re-establish her family. She felt she did not belong or share any positive identity with other parents: she carried the stigma of having been a child in care herself, and the stigma of having been judged unfit to be a parent to her own children. She has used the Resilient Parent coaching approach to consider what she wants to achieve. Read the Full Story
Dennis' Story   Dennis became involved in Comas' Serenity Cafe project after treatment for addiction. He was trying to sustain abstinence and looking forward to creating a new life for himself. As a young man he had been in care as his own family life had been affected by parental alcoholism. Volunteering in the Serenity Cafe gave Dennis the confidence and self-belief to set up new groups within the project for others recovering from addiction, and he began to see a pathway towards a career. However, Dennis still felt that he struggled with his addiction, and when a crisis in Dennis' life occurred, his old coping mechanisms - drugs - kicked in. He relapsed and spent several weeks in 'madness and chaos' (Dennis' words) before getting in touch again. Over several months we have helped Dennis to feel he is still connected to the Serenity Cafe project and that his skills and talents will still be valued and welcomed, ensuring he has 'something to work towards' to regain control in his life and his addiction Read the Full Story

Circles of Care: resources for life in recovery

Comas is participating in the Proof of Concept stage of Circles of Care for people in recovery from addiction being led by STRADA. The work is exploring how we can facilitate and support individuals to create a circle of social and personal connections which support and nurture their recovery journey, enabling professionals to provide an  ‘outer circle’ of resources. This reconceptualises the role of services and brings to centre stage the concept of a recovery community (peers with shared experience, family and friends) providing the context for recovery.

Unleashing the power

Martin_Luther_KingComas: unleashing the power within individuals and communities to recover, develop and grow

Increased community connections

Increased resilience

Recovery

Comas is a community development agency dedicated to liberating the potential of people who feel on the outside of society to find their best way to experience community and to be resilient.
We forge new thinking about community, resilience and recovery.

We think – We act – We change lives

 

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Comas

Comas is a Scots Gaelic word which means ability, capability.