Promoting recovery in Peterborough

Blog

  • Drug & alcohol recovery

Talk about 'recovery groups' can often lead to a discussion of 12 step based groups, SMART groups, service-user groups and so on. These types of groups are fairly easy to understand from the ‘outside’ and thanks to the media portrayal of some recovery groups, there can sometimes be a narrow view of them. They can follow particular formats, they can have certain traditions or rules and they can aim for specific outcomes that may be measurable.

But there are also those recovery groups that are simply individuals that come together on a regular basis to a venue with no particular objective other than to have something fun or different to do and meet like-minded people.

The FREE group in Peterborough is a good example of this. The group, which developed out of a series of activities for the Recovery Capital project, has doubled in size since forming just 8 weeks ago, they now have a new permanent home and are beginning to meet more frequently.  As one member put it at our co-design event in mid-January: “we get together and have a giggle!”

The group are already having a big impact on each other’s recovery and lives and want to do more to help others in the city. But they have found – as we did in our Recovery Capital project research – that people are reluctant to get involved in activities like this; they have preconceived ideas of people sitting around in a circle and talking about their addiction generated by years of myths, few opportunities available in the past and the media representation of recovery support groups.

So together we made a short film to tell people about FREE - which stands for Free Recovery for Everyone Everywhere - and what to expect if you attend and the impact it has had on their recovery.

I hope you'll agree they've done a great job!

You can find out about when and where the group meets by visiting the Citizen Power website or contacting [email protected]

Be the first to write a comment

0 Comments

Please login to post a comment or reply

Don't have an account? Click here to register.

Related articles

  • From Rat Park to Housing First

    Rosie Phillips FRSA

    To mark their 20th anniversary, DHI are running The Vision Project. Through a series of articles, podcasts and events during 2019, they are inviting people to contribute their ideas of how society can end social exclusion over the next 20 years. Here is an extract from Rosie’s blog. That can be read in full here

  • How can we give up bad habits for good?

    Ian Burbidge

    With the post-Christmas resolutions looming, when we try to address the worst of our seasonal over-indulgences, the question remains: how can we give up bad habits for good?

  • Using a strength based approach to help combat homelessness

    Sarah Hughes

    Sarah Hughes FRSA, discusses her work with Mayday Trust on finding better ways to work with people going through tough times such as experiencing homelessness, leaving care or coming out of prison.