Meet the rehab team that’s looking to new Horizon!

Horizon Life was playing a unique and life-changing role offering follow-on support after rehab until it closed during Covid. Today, a passionate new team is battling to reopen it.

“Horizon Life is like physiotherapy after an operation,” says Andy Paterson. “If drug rehab centres are the surgery that saves your life, we are the therapy that builds a healthy body afterwards so you can return to normality.”

Andy is describing the work of Horizon Life Training – the Harrogate-based residential centre where former addicts who want to learn a trade rather than go into post-rehab ministry can access education, training and follow-on support.

And having watched its former trustees shutter its doors after Covid, Andy and his new team are celebrating having rallied fresh troops to reopen it just four months ago.

Pioneering

Horizon Life was a pioneering project that began when a gap in the rehab process was spotted. “You have rehabs like Teen Challenge which do a brilliant job of helping people get addiction-free,” says Andy, a trustee of Horizon Life who is himself a former heroin addict but now minister of Harrogate Elim Church.

“The problem, though, is that after these programmes there’s a risk people will drift back to their home towns without the skills to join the working world or to stay free of their old lives. Some people want to go into the ministry training that’s offered as a follow-on, but others just want to go home, get a job and provide for their families.”

Former rehab residents often had not finished school or gained any qualifications, yet they now need to fit themselves for the working world. The need gave birth to the vision – to establish a 12 to 18-month programme to get them into college or apprenticeships. “We’d focus on vocational training, educational support and discipleship.”

Meanwhile, on their dairy farm in the village of Killinghall, farmers Mark and Becky Morrell felt God calling them to do something more with the farmland that had been in their family for generations.

When they heard about the vision for what would become Horizon Life, they agreed for their old barns to be renovated into a £2m residential centre – and then sold the idea to their neighbours.

“We’d heard how lads who did really well in rehab were often struggling when they came out if they didn’t want to go into ministry,” says Mark. “We had an acre site which was perfect for the centre. We also thought the hands-on work on the farm would make it a good workplace.”

So Horizon Life was born, opening in 2012 and welcoming around 200 men over the next decade.

Then Covid disrupted everything. “Horizon Life only takes people who have completed at least nine months in an absence-based Christian rehab,” says Andy, “but Covid restrictions dried up the pipeline of residents, and with it the housing benefits which were its main source of income.”

Reluctantly the former trustees closed the centre and the doors were shut for 18 months.

Reviving a vision

Andy, Mark, Becky and others were convinced the original vision for Horizon Life was still very much alive, and they felt passionate about reviving it.

“We could see God’s hand upon it,” says Mark. “I’d worked with a lot of their lads myself. There were so many amazing stories of lives being turned around that we could see the centre was still needed. We couldn’t imagine it being right to close it.”

The previous trustees offered to hand over the reins if a new board could be formed. A new team was gathered last spring which got to grips with relaunching “a big empty building that was like the Marie Celeste” as Andy puts it.

In January a centre manager, Matthew Nice was employed. So too was partnership manager, Gordon Stewart, who in 2012 had been Horizon Life’s first resident.

As a team of volunteers set about refurbishing bedrooms, living spaces and facilities, Gordon got to work promoting Horizon Life among Christian rehab centres and re-establishing an in-flow of students.

Support workers were recruited, many of whom had themselves been through rehab and Horizon Life. Then on 13 March the centre opened its doors.

Back in business

At the time of writing, five lads are settling into the new-look Horizon Life. “One is out of the army and is doing a scuba diving course because he’d like to teach diving,” says Mark.

“Another wants to get his HGV licence and another is signed up for a Level One diploma so he can go into plastering, painting and woodwork. One worked on farms before falling into 30 years of addiction. He wants to get back into that and a friend has just offered him an opportunity on his farm.”

Six businesses so far have rented space in the centre to offer work experience in IT, catering, as electricians and more.

Students are being taught life skills too. They are encouraged to immerse themselves in church life in one of the 24-plus congregations around Harrogate which support Horizon Life. Support staff are also helping with CV writing and Job Centre visits, coaching lads how to take responsibility for their work lives. Around this, meals, Bible studies and social time are shared.

The vision is for Horizon Life to be at its capacity of 16 lads by the end of the year and for further relationships to be built with rehabs around the UK.

“For many, reading, writing and studying for a ministry course is never going to be their thing, but they could build a house or learn to be the best joiner, gardener, painter or decorator there is,” says Andy. “We’re equipping them to become self-sufficient and to be able to support their families for life.”

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.