Current Projects

As of August 2022

There are currently three main areas of work for me that all revolve around Cultivating Recovery Capital – the development of a new centre at Leeds Trinity University; the growing work with the Recovery Outcomes Institute on mapping and measuring recovery capital and developing methods for building it and local and applied partnerships:

The Centre for Addiction Recovery Research (CARR): One of the most exciting parts of moving to Leeds Trinity University has been the opportunity to start a new research centre that will also have a teaching component that will be the first centre in the UK (and only the second internationally) that is built on the aim of trying to establish and build an evidence base around addiction recovery. My hope is that this will become a focal point for applied research and partnership in this area and will link with research endeavours in the US and elsewhere on this subject
Recovery Outcomes Institute (ROI): I am proud to have the role as research lead and president of the Recovery Outcomes Institute who are leading the way in developing accessible methods of charting recovery capital in a number of recovery residences across the US. At present there are very strong partnerships with Virginia, Florida and Michigan and in a blog to be posted shortly I will outline some of the new work around the development of a version of the REC-CAP for Recovery Community Organisations (RCOs) (or LEROs as they are known in the UK). I would also strongly encourage you to have a look at the paper we have recently published based on our work in Florida with Fellowship Living. This is an area of work that will expand significantly in the coming weeks and months.
Local partnerships: In this overview, I will highlight two particular partnerships although there are others that will be the focus in coming weeks and months. The first is with Recovery Connections and Middlesbrough County Council. The initiative is called BRIM which stands for Building Recovery in Middlesbrough and is an attempt to create an inclusive recovery city from the incredibly strong foundations that are already in place including the restaurant and café (Fork in the Road), the recovery florists (Blooms) and the recovery support centre (Bedford House) as well as the Recovery Connections rehab. Secondly, I am privileged to lead a team working with Derbyshire County Council on a project to develop the voice of lived experience in services and commissioning across the county that I live in. The project will also involve attempting to improve recovery pathways for residential treatment and supporting the development of plans for a recovery hub in the county. As with Middlesbrough, this is about implementing evidence-based recovery approaches in an applied setting to build something sustainable and that improves the quality of life for people who live there.

The overall vision I have is of three things linking and combining:

A specialist UK research, education and training centre that garners and promotes evidence-based recovery partnership and that provides an academic voice for lived experience
An international platform for monitoring and measuring recovery capital and building a systematic approach to mapping and building recovery capital resources in individuals and agencies
A range of ‘community partners’ who will work with me and my colleagues to test and implement these ideas in practical settings. Derbyshire and Middlesbrough are only two of a range of partners. If you are involved in a LERO or RCO and would want to sign up to be a part of this partnership model, there is a space for you to open that dialogue with me in the Connecting section of the website

This is only the beginning of work on this website, and I hope that many of the other projects and partnerships will become the focus not only for blogs but also for journal articles and reports that I intend to build over time.

And please do contact me if you think your recovery project should be included here