Co-designing Recovery for Peterborough

Tuesday 17 January saw several members of the Citizen Power team descend onPeterborough Town Hall for the Recovery Capital Co-design Event – a tightly-packed morning of presentations, brainstorming, discussion and against-the-clock pitching as the city’s Recovery Champion Network put their heads together to come up with potential solutions to Peterborough’s substance misuse problem.

The energy and enthusiasm in the room was palpable from the get-go – not least because those who mattered the most were represented en masse in the form of FREE, the independent recovery group that emerged from the arts activities the Recovery Capital team initiated leading up to Christmas. The founding members were joined by the city’s most promising recovery stakeholders – some of whom were not even aware of their positive contribution to the city’s recovery movement until we revealed the 2011 research findings.

The event cast the net wide to bring together a diverse and committed group of individuals from the Council, Probation,Cambridgeshire Constabulary, HMP Peterborough, the NTA and Peterborough’s newly installed treatment provider, ASPIRE. Alongside these were representatives from Peterborough Streets, The Women’s Centre, the SaferPeterborough Partnership, Cross Keys Homes and KingsGate Community Church.

Together, they form the foundation for Peterborough's Recovery Champions Network, which we hope will help to strengthen and build the links between the key organisations, individuals, community groups and opportunities that we know can help to make a sustainable recovery more accessible for a greater range of people.

After reflecting on the research findings, the participants broke off into 3 groups to open the debate around what Peterborough needed to bridge the gap for those in recovery between service provision and integration into the wider community, and how existing resources might pooled to make this a reality. The solutions unearthed were each distinct and innovative, addressing the problem from markedly different angles.

By the close of the session, after each group had pitched to the others and honed their proposals based on the feedback, the possibilities for really sparking a recovery movement that stretches far beyond access to treatment felt tangible and do-able.  We’ll be revealing what everyone came up with in the not-so-distant future when the ideas are integrated into a report.

Watch this space!