A Day trip to Bradford: Women’s Recovery Housing and Community Recovery Engagement

Nov 2025

By Professor David Best.

One of the most exciting (yet frustrating) parts of my work is the ability to witness at first hand the astonishing diversity, reach and impact of recovery communities across the UK and more widely across the world. To witness genuine human connection and trust, creating lasting and meaningful change is an incredible privilege. However, so much of it happens so close at hand that I am not aware of frustrates me as an academic and as someone whose role is in part to chart recovery innovation and its impact. But this is just a minor criticism about communication and the maturity of our networks, which cannot deter from the astonishing power of local champions and communities to innovate, share and inspire.

So one city, two examples, both visited on the one day.

Evolve Recovery Homes, Bradford (https://www.evolverecoveryhomes.co.uk) is a project set up and managed by Eloise Sykes to provide safe and stable accommodation for women in recovery in Bradford. Accommodation is also available to support women who have children and the organisation is run as a Lived Experience Recovery Organisation based on the principles of peer support and learning.

This was my third visit and the first time I had met the full staff team as I was there to deliver a recovery based package for outcome monitoring, care planning and review.

Essentially, the model involves four steps:

1.  Completing a brief recovery measure called the RCS-36 (unimaginatively named as there are 36 questions – 12 each in the areas of personal, social and community recovery capital).

2.  Feeding back and discussing the scores with the participant.

3.  Using the R1 Learning Recovery Capital playing cards (https://r1learning.com/r1-recoverycapital), identify what area of strengths or barriers are to be worked on and then identify the three priority areas.

4.  Create a Recovery Care Plan for the next three months.

The beauty of the 90-day cycle is that the process generates five metrics of recovery capital on each occasion:

• Personal recovery capital score

• Social recovery capital score

• Community recovery capital score

• Goals achieved

• Strengths already developed

All of the team completed the RCS-36 questionnaire reporting on their own wellbeing now, typically reporting high levels of strengths and few barriers and unmet needs. Then they role-played being a client who had just walked through the door. One team member actually did this as herself on the day she entered Evolve as a client, and did a care plan for what she aimed for on that day.

She ended up in tears (which were fortunately, tears of joy) as she realised that the goals she had set then had all been achieved now. This is the power of strength-based working but also clear testimony to the benefits of Evolve’s programme.

So we are now in a position to create an evidence base for Evolve based on a standardised measure that will chronicle the growth of strengths and the reduction in barriers and unmet needs, but will do it in such a way that the resident will use the results to plan and achieve their goals. Using strengths to build new strengths.

From there I travelled the four miles to St Stephens Church in the West Bowling area of the city where the Create Strengths Group (Home - Create Strength Group) were running a community forum where member of the church and the community came together to discuss drugs, alcohol, community safety, and wellbeing issues in the community. This a regular event, but one that is hosted in multiple locations across the city to actively engage with partners (including the SHINE group that is based in the church) and to communicate messages of connection, hope and active citizenship.

While too many specialist addiction treatment services are based in bleak, outdated clinical centres waiting for people to seek them out, this is recovery in action. Visible, engaged and active in communities, building and bridging community assets to create the conditions for recovery to flourish in the community.

Not only does the Create Strengths Group, under the direction of its CEO Dave Memery, innovate as a core member of the College of Lived Experience Recovery Organisations (CLERO), it is also innovative and distinctive in its origins and aspirations. The original target population for CSG were users in cannabis and Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS), as well as the usual issues around alcohol and opiates, and a part of the session in St Stephens was about the abuse of nitrous oxide and its impact on the community.

Around 30 people took part in the session, including the wife of the vicar, a comorbidity specialist, two members of the local probation service and a wide and diverse range of community members. This is recovery in action – integrated and integral to communities and actively challenging stigma, despair and isolation.

Both sessions were inspiring and energising. Both groups are warm, caring, passionate and committed. Their lack of visibility nationally may pose a challenge but their impact and commitment to learning, growing and building will serve that joint purpose of building recovery communities while bolstering their local communities.