"bullying within Ashley house"

It feels to me like the voluntary group within Ashley house is run by a group of bullies, who are unstable within their own recovery, I am of the opinion that four people have left the group because of this. I also believe the when this has been reported to staff they have done nothing to support or sort out the issue raised.

One of the group members was shouting at me in front of two staff members, nothing was done to calm this person down and when they left the room I asked what I had done wrong the staff said they could not understand why they had been like that. It felt to me that staff had witnessed what I believe to be bullying behavior and did nothing to the person.

In my view the advice I was given was to bite the bullet, but if you are sitting in a room with people who I believe to be lying and making it impossible for you to be part of the group then biting the bullet will not work. That’s what I was doing before I left.

In my opinion the following took place in a group that a staff member sat in on. Some of the group openly stated that they wanted two members to be out of the group even though they had done a lot of work elsewhere within Ashley house. After this the members felt they could not to the group anyway, I know this to be true because I was there but did not want to speak up as I felt the same may happen to me (and it has).

I believe the sad outcome of this is that there are no more peer2peer meetings and 9 times out of ten when you turn up for the breakfast club it’s not on or I get someone asking me what I am doing there. I also think it is true that when I have had appointments half of Widness and Runcorn know I have been to Ashley house as the people running the breakfast club are worst than the local paper for gossiping, patient confidentiality, they don’t know what it means.

It is also my opinion that the Smart recovery training was held back as those who were chosen for it did not turn up due to them being unstable when those who had suggested it in the first place and were able to do it were left out.

I believe the problem is that no one is willing to take control of the group when something is going wrong and the group is never going to go anywhere while you have, in my opinion, people who are unstable and bullying running it. I think it’s a shame for all service users and Ashley house that some people no longer use this group because of this.

It seems to me that since the start of this group the same 3 people have ruined it over and over again. When they relapse and leave the group it gets better but then they come back and try to take over by lying and bullying, the same thing happens over and over again. Until the staff does something about this it is never going to change.