The Duchess of Cambridge will officially open a new treatment centre to help fight addiction on 7 February as part of her role as patron of charity Action on Addiction. Kate will open the centre in Wickford, Essex, and will learn more about the charity's community-based recovery programme, Clouds in the Community. The recovery programme aims to offer an effective alternative to residential treatment, and enables the charity to provide services for more people in more places. While there, Kate will also join a round-table discussion with healthcare professionals, talk to staff and clients and attend an opening reception.
The Duchess has been patron for the charity, which offers life-saving treatment to both individuals and their families, since 2012. Action on Addiction also offers educational programmes up to degree level at The Centre for Addiction Treatment Studies in Wiltshire – somewhere Kate visited back in 2015.The centre, in partnership with the University of Bath, trains addiction counsellors to a higher standard than ever before. Kate met new graduates, telling them: "It's such a positive story for you all." Kate also previously visited a women's prison in Surrey in 2015 as part of her role, where she met inmates battling addictions to drugs and alcohol. She later said she was "grateful" to the women "for sharing their difficult personal stories".
The Duchess of Cambridge will visit the new Action on Addiction centre in Essex in October
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The 36-year-old was last out in public on Wednesday when she visited the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College. While there, Kate chatted with the clinicians and patients and learned more about the issues surrounding maternal mental health. As ever, the pregnant mother-of-two wowed the waiting crowds, dressed in a vibrant pastel coat by Seraphine and high heel shoes. The coat snugly covered her growing baby bump, perfectly skimming over her pregnant frame.