Building an Inclusive Recovery City in Middlesbrough

So what exactly is an ‘Inclusive Recovery City?’ The minds behind the model, including leading academics and policymakers, have witnessed that recovery, although an individual journey, is more likely to be sustained within a community environment. 

For an Inclusive Recovery City is not just a place where recovery happens. It is an environment in which it is also visible, understood, empowered to create opportunities and, crucially, measured effectively to demonstrate its undeniably positive impact on the town or city. Where people are celebrated for giving back to the place where they grasped recovery. Where they inspire others – including people who have never experienced or been touched by addiction – and work, together, to reduce stigma.

It’s reassuring, then, that Inclusive Recovery Cities (IRCs) are already being built from the ground up, in several notable locations across Europe. And in the North East of England, a community in Middlesbrough has been reinforcing the foundations of the latest IRC for some time.

As Professor David Best, of Leeds Trinity University and co-host the recent event in Middlesbrough said: “The recovery community is woven into the physical community, its reach is extensive through geographical, demographic and social groups, and its work is about enriching and contributing to the wider community.”

So why Middlesbrough? 

With our longstanding work as a Lived Experience Recovery Organisation, visible recovery is a largely welcomed movement in the town. We have a high street profile, in the form of social enterprise businesses, maintain a presence at the local University (Teesside) in the form of a Collegiate Recovery Programme, and have strong, long-established links with the local Council. (In fact, the photo above shows the Mayor, Chris Cooke, signing the Inclusive Recovery Cities Charter, on his first full day in office). Plus, we have also been part of a recent awards nomination, for our employee support partnership with national Port Group, PD Ports.

The Group’s CEO, Frans Caljé (pictured below), commented on the work in a manner that demonstrates an understanding of recovery, and a reduction of stigma, in the area:” When people develop an addiction, you don’t want to give up on them. You want to help them get on to the paths of recovery earlier on. That’s good for Teesside, good for families, good for us as an organisation. It’s all intrinsically linked, a bit of a social ecosystem that we’re all part of. We’re not immune to that, and most importantly, I don’t want to be immune to that. I want to be part of the solution.”

These positive relationships, the likes of which are not routinely synonymous with addiction recovery, not only add to the visibility of our LERO community, they also demonstrate understanding and trust in front of new audiences and communities. They help to place the work here in Middlesbrough in the middle of similar initiatives taking place in Ghent, Dublin and Gothenburg, to name but three of the IRCs being built across Europe.

And while each location and how it operates within its own communities and culture is rightfully unique, there remain fundamental aspects of each burgeoning IRC that need to be in place. “You need a really integrated approach. You need partners from treatment centres, partners from recovery organisations. But most of all you need to reach the people and give a voice to people in recovery,” said Filip De Sager, Drug Policy Coordinator in Ghent, highlighting the need for strong links between policymakers and recovery organisations on a local level.

This comment, however, proves that the building blocks for an Inclusive Recovery City – anywhere in the country – are not immeasurably far away. Any town or city that already has close links between public services, charities, and other recovery organisations, can build on these relationships, for the benefit of the local community, and work towards becoming an Inclusive Recovery City. 

“Finding meaning and purpose in your life and in your work aids wellbeing and quality of life,” said Dr David Patton, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at The University of Derby. And that is regenerative and restorative, not just for those in recovery but importantly, for the wider community and society. If we can change the culture that’s occurring in that locality, to adapt and adopt some of these ingredients that we see in the culture of recovery, that would have a healing and regenerative benefit in society.”

So what’s next?

“This is about creating a genuinely inclusive city,” said Professor David Best. “And that really means trust and engagement. The trust of citizens for each other and their institutions, and their willingness to do things together, inclusively. To build the recovery community, and build connections right across the city.”

Dr Ed Day, UK Government Recovery Champion and Clinical Reader in Addiction Psychiatry at the University of Birmingham, adds that a LERO is likely to be the driving force at the centre of the conversation: “A Lived Experience Recovery Organisation is crucial to both organise that, act as a focus, giving people hope, to overcome negative views and the stigma of addiction. To provide practical support and help them find new pathways to grow personally, educationally, socially and all those good things that make life worth living.”

So, for Lived Experience Recovery Organisations, nationwide, and other recovery services with positive links to local public services, the possibility of developing an Inclusive Recovery City is very real. Professor Best is welcoming any interested participants to get in touch and join future meetings and workshops, as a group of UK towns and cities is created to drive IRC’s forward across the country.

To find out more about Building Inclusive Recovery Cities, in Middlesbrough & beyond, please email [email protected]