A rehab centre set up by the family of the late Amy Winehouse is celebrating ten years of helping women on the road to addiction recovery.
Amy’s Place, which is run by the Amy Winehouse Foundation in partnership with Clarion Housing Association, was launched in 2016 to as a clinic for female addicts.
Winehouse, who died from alcohol poisoning at the age of 27 in 2011, attended rehab several times during her career, before addiction ultimately claimed her life.
The centre offers places to women for up to two years, and over the last decade, it has helped nearly 100 residents towards recovery.
Speaking to the BBC, Jane Winehouse, Amy’s stepmother, said: “I think she would have loved the girls; I wish she could be here to meet them, but she's certainly here in spirit.”
Jane told the BBC that she visits the centre regularly and she often hears how her stepdaughter has touched the lives of many of the women. “You hear a lot about [it],” she added.
The centre, according to Jane, is the only rehabilitation/housing facility specifically for young women, but funding “is an issue” and she said she “wishes there was more provision”.
One resident, 27-year-old Ciara, who struggled with drug addiction and has now called Amy’s Place home for the last 18 months, told the BBC: “I thought it was just going to be like a dumping ground, but it wasn't.
“It was a community, loads of girls that were similar. It felt like home the minute I came here.”
If it was not for Amy’s Place, Ciara said, “I don't know where I would be right now”.
“I didn't have enough love for myself to want to stop using drugs. No matter if I went to [support groups], friends or family, my partner, my mum or dad, nothing was enough.
“The counselling, the therapies, the activities, the girls here, that's what I needed. That's what made me want to stay clean.”
Ciara added that the centre has “completely changed” her life.
Another resident, 21-year-old Stella, said she was “just was desperate to come here," having spent the previous four years “in my room in pain, unable to get out of bed”.
Having distanced herself from her loved ones, she said: “I had just completely ruined my whole life. My life before Amy's was so lonely and it just wasn't a life I wanted to live.”
She found herself in Amy’s Place after a medical emergency, which she now says was the realisation she needed.
“I wouldn't have anything without this place," she said. "I'm really grateful that her legacy can live on within this house.”
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