Growing Recovery Leadership
Working alongside communities to grow LEROs and lived-experience leadership
Every community holds recovery potential – the people, spaces, and stories that bring hope to life.
At Recovery Connections, we help local areas unlock that potential.
We work alongside councils, public health teams, and local partners to listen, connect, and build lived-experience leadership. Our consultancy and development work supports communities to grow their own Lived-Experience Recovery Organisations (LEROs), strengthen partnerships, and make recovery visible and connected as a shared community strength.
From county-wide listening programmes which guide local authorities on supporting LEROs to ambassador training and community mapping, our models are grounded in lived experience, informed by evidence, and driven by hope.
Our Models are rooted in Lived-Experience, informed by our impact and grounded in hope.
What We Do
Our focus is on changing the environment around recovery, creating fertile ground where people can move from isolation to connection, from shame to visibility, and from surviving to leading.
Both of our tested frameworks for building Lived-Experience Leadership:
- Make recovery visible in local communities, showing that change is possible and real.
- Build confidence and belonging among people with lived or living experience.
- Reduce stigma by putting positive, relatable recovery stories in public spaces.
- Create new entry points for people not in treatment to engage with recovery safely.
- Develop leaders from within the community, showing lived experience as strength, not deficit.
- Bridge the gap between systems and communities, meaning people don’t fall through cracks.
These are models that make change, shifting narratives and build capacity within communities so that recovery becomes part of everyday life.
About our Models
Your Recovery, Your Community and Recovery Connections Ambassadors are two of our related, yet also independent frameworks, which work in communities supporting recovery in local areas to take root, grow, and lead itself.
We work alongside councils, public health teams, and local partners to listen, connect, and build lived-experience leadership.
Your Recovery, Your Community
Learning from the Community, building capacity & empowering Lived-Experience Leadership.
Through a roadshow of events and conversations organised and led by lived-experience and our relational LERO principles, we connect and learn from recovery voices across counties. Our unique approach leads to the creation of a community led Lived-Experience Recovery Organisation (LERO) Plan. This is a roadmap for a local authority to support, nurture and grow LEROs in their area, led by the voices of the local communities.
Recovery Connections Ambassadors
Mobilising Lived-Experience to lead change.
Grounded in Lived-Experience and working together (not for) communities, we map community strengths and connect recovery communities. Through our accredited Recovery Ambassadors programme, we help people across the county grow into confident Lived-Experience leaders, making recovery visible and hopeful all while connecting people to support and belonging.
Bring This Approach To Your Area
We work with councils, public health teams, and community partnerships to help recovery grow from the ground up.
Would you like to explore how our Lived-Experience led models of supporting communities turn lived-experience into leadership, or how a tailored approach could work in your area? To find out more get in touch with our Impact & Development Lead, Mark Stephenson.
Get in Touch
