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September 2014 |
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Recovery |
Communities
expect them to be provided for us. We need to look first at ourselves and our
neighbourhoods for assets which we can make use of, rather than to look at our
neighbourhoods as problems to be solved.
RECLAIMING OUR CITIZENSHIP
Next, we need to design our answers together, not have the answers given us
from outside. To do this we need to organise ourselves without hierarchies, to
be as diverse and open minded as we can – and we should make it fun. Most
of all, we who experience the problem have the best understanding of the
solution; and more, we need to be the solution. There is a power in recovery,
as David Best says, and with this motivation we turn our deficits into assets. To
do this involves our empowerment and a repositioning of the relationship
between professionals, the deliverers of traditional services, and ‘service
users’ – who in future must be part of the same, flat community. This is not
natural for any of the participants and involves the biggest change of mindset.
It does, however, work.
Finally, our solutions need to be designed beyond the soulless forms-driven
answers that have come to dominate so much of the service delivery we have
experienced in the past. We know, for example, that beneath all the symptoms is
a loss of wellbeing, and that through community-led action our goal is to restore
‘RISE is an excellent example of
applying sound academic theory
and emerging evidence-based
practice in creating a caring and
meaningful recovery community.
The work they are doing is truly
outstanding and should be an
example of innovation in community
development and co-production for
and beyond the addiction recovery
movement in the UK.’
DR DAVID BEST, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
ADDICTION STUDIES AT TURNING POINT /
MONASH UNIVERSITY
it. A good broad definition of a healthy life is the ‘five ways to wellbeing’ and our
solutions need to embody those ideas. We believe that in any good answers, the
scientific (true) must be balanced with the ethical (good) and aesthetic
(beautiful). Today we have to recognise that it is just as important to lift people’s
hearts as it is to lift them out of poverty.
OUR JOURNEY TOGETHER
Where is this all going? The challenge today is to broaden the debate on these
ideas and to use them practically. We are actively seeking your involvement in
their development. Any products we create on this journey we intend to provide
free to other community groups. We hope that you will do the same. The first
step on the journey is a common understanding and a common terminology. To
read more on the ideas in this article, see the references below. The next step is
to talk to us, and to each other.
FURTHER READING:
Core Economy (Cahn, 2006); Asset Based Community Development (ABCD,
McKnight, Building Communities from the Inside Out, 1993); Co-production (NEF,
2008); Five ways to wellbeing (NEF, 2008); Afternow; the Good, the Beautiful and
the True (Hanlon, 2013); Recovery capital (Best, 2010).
for ourselves