Mapping the growth of an Inclusive Recovery City: A day out in Redcar and an interlude en route
- Sharon Osterfield
- Nov 6, 2025
- 3 min read
By David Best, Vicky Hartley, Shelley Duffy
There are currently ten established Inclusive Recovery Cities in England, a number that has grown since the wonderful launch event for Middlesbrough’s IRC at the Riverside Stadium in May of 2023. Middlesbrough, through its ‘Building Recovery In Middlesbrough’ (BRIM) programme has led the way in innovating around recovery and Recovery Connections; the flagship LERO in the North-East of England, is now looking to replicate that success across its six other sites in the North-East.
Right next door to Middlesbrough lies Redcar, a seaside town famous for its Lemontop Ice Creams and its racecourse. Until recently there had been relatively little recovery innovation in the town and so we have the opportunity to chart the growth and impact of an IRC in the town from relatively humble beginnings.
On Friday the 17th of October, Vicky and Jenny from Recovery Connections hosted a launch event at the Westmorland Day Centre in the town, and we had 30 people in attendance for the event. It was genuinely inspiring and optimistic and virtually everyone who was there signed up to be a part of the project moving forward. This is the team of people who will play a dual role of assisting the STAR team to collect the baseline data and then work together to champion recovery pathways in Redcar.
Effectively, we now have one month to collect baseline data for where Redcar is as a recovery city before we start to implement the model. These are the baseline questions we want to be able to answer:
What are the recovery assets that are available and accessible in the town?
How widely are they used and by whom?
How many visible recovery champions are there in Redcar?
How many people engage with recovery support services either for their own needs or as affected others?
What is the recovery capital of the staff?
What are the attitudes and beliefs of other professionals?
What are the attitudes and beliefs of the general public?
What do the general public know or think about recovery in the town?
This is something that we will measure now and again one year later to assess what impact the implementation of recovery capital has on the town. Although we have tracked progress in Middlesbrough, this is the first time that we will systematically and prospectively map and measure recovery capital change and growth at a community level.
The team of people who engaged and who signed up to move things forward shows that the fundamentals for an Inclusive Recovery City are in place. They are a group of people with:
a shared goal of building visible, attractive and accessible recovery;
Who are proud of their city or town and want to celebrate its achievements;
Who are proud of recovery whether it is their own or other people’s;
Who are committed to working together to improve the connectedness of the recovery community and of the whole community.
There was also a deeply personal experience for me. A man (who I am sorry to say I did not recognise) came up to me at the end and told me that, when I was working in HMP Holme House about eight years ago, had been so taken by a talk I gave on the importance of social networks that it changed (successfully) his approach to his own recovery. I feel truly blessed to have been a part of his journey.
It was a hugely inspiring session and an incredibly good start to a new chapter in the story of Inclusive Recovery Cities.
An Interlude: Earlier in the day we had a meeting with a group of people who have volunteered to be a part of the first Inclusive Recovery Region in the North-East of England. All 12 local authorities will work together to create IRCs across the region and to work together to create regional events and activities and sharing of learning and innovation. We are aiming to have our first Inclusive Recovery region event before Christmas as a celebration of Recovery Families at Christmas – complete with panto, Santa and presents for any children who are there. Time is tight but this is an exciting and ambitious initial goal for the Inclusive Recovery Region model and a huge thank you to those who have offered to help.
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