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is based in a ‘wellness’ approach, which provides an empowering energy for a
person developing recovery.
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And what is the impact?
People who have had contact with recovery coaching
report a wide range of responses, including increased confidence in and attitude
towards recovery. They feel respected as individuals and less like cogs in a
system or machine. There are more feelings of control on one hand and healthy
interdependence on the other, as well as a deeper sense of self-determination
coupled with a positive attitude to community.
We are seeing a paradigm shift in the way we both view and embrace the idea
of recovery, and recovery coaching is a profound part of that. The reason for that
is twofold. Firstly, it facilitates an extension of the mutual aid concept across
multiple pathways and roads to recovery, connecting them together and providing
a continuum of relationship that is vital for a person building recovery. In doing
this it also complements and leverages the growing appetite for the formation of
recovery communities by enhancing natural relational skills while maintaining a
non-professional culture within them.
Secondly, it offers a low-entry threshold in terms of skills and personal
development that provides immediate returns for both individuals and those they
relate to. By embracing these skills and concepts the person receiving recovery
coaching is in turn spreading these same skills and concepts within their life and
community. This can only increase the sum total of possibility for recovery.
*****
So, where to next?
There are questions that need resolving and exploring. Most
important is how the recovery field can fully embrace recovery coaching to
preserve the unique and promising role of the peer recovery coach and allow for
the development of the professional recovery coach.
These and other topics will be developed and debated at the first ever
International Recovery Coaching Conference (IRCC) in London on 1-2 October,
organised by the Foundation for Recovery Coaching CIC. www.ircconference.com
Anthony Eldridge-Rogers is the founder of the Foundation for Recovery
Coaching (FRC) www.recoverycoachingfoundation.com and the IRCC conference
www.ircconference.com.
Recovery|
Voices
September 2012 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 21
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
IT’S NOT LONG NOW TILL THE FOURTH UK
RECOVERY WALK
, which will take place in
Brighton on 29 September. This year’s walk –
planned, organised and delivered by people
from the local recovery community – has
adopted ‘creativity’ as its theme and
welcomes all those who want to celebrate
and promote recovery in their communities.
The walk will be a celebration. It will be fun. It
will bring together recovery community
members from all over the UK, and for a little while it will make recovery
very visible on the streets of Brighton.
So why is visible recovery important? I wrote a piece recently for the
NTA website about the importance of hope and optimism within services
that seek to become more recovery orientated and within communities
that nurture and build recovery. I said that by making recovery visible
hope is generated for individuals and communities, and new possibilities
for transformation opened up.
Recovery must be encountered if it is to become ‘contagious’. In a
society where unhealthy dependencies are spiralling out of control as
communities fragment and fracture, there is an ever increasing need for
visible recovery. The UK Recovery Walk is one articulation of recovery and
is, along with more and more visible recovery activity within the UK,
beginning to challenge stigma and discrimination through its embracing
of diversity, championing of individual and collective strengths and
through an emphasis on connections, belonging and community.
However there is a need to make recovery much more visible within
all our communities. The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has, having
analysed a huge amount of national and international research,
identified ‘five ways to wellbeing’: be active, take notice, learn, connect
and give. The UKRF believes that we need to focus on the assets that
support the five ways for individuals, groups and communities and
challenge our current deficit/needs-based culture. In identifying and
supporting the assets within our communities that support the five
ways, we will support new and diverse forms of mutual aid and make
recovery visible and accessible for all.
We will ensure that recovery networks are there for all who are
recovering. An asset/strength-based philosophy and practice, grounded
in social justice and rooted within communities, will make recovery
visible. The UKRF plays its part by focusing on the identification and
support of recovery community organisers and networkers within its
recovery seminars and the development of affinity networks. Others are
concentrating on 12-step facilitation, establishing new SMART groups,
developing and delivering recovery coach training programmes, forming
new community-led social enterprises.
We are all, in our very different ways, seeking to make recovery
visible. We are all in the business of supporting new and vibrant forms of
mutual aid, all of us exploring the five ways to wellbeing and making the
path as we walk it.
www.ukrf.org.uk
www.recoverywalk2012.org.uk
Alistair Sinclair is director of the UK Recovery Federation (UKRF)
VOICES OF RECOVERY
COME TOGETHER
It’s time to make recovery more visible, says
Alistair Sinclair