The Recovery Circle C.I.C – The story so far
Hi,
I am Dawn Gadsby and I have set up a community initiative, The Recovery Circle (TRC).
TRC was born 2 years ago in February 2019 and is based in Southport. TRC supports people with addiction/mental health issues. We offer a safe, non-judgemental, empathic environment where people can get the help they need. Much of the support is provided by people who have lived experience. Currently TRC run two groups a week on a Wednesday evening and a Saturday morning. We are looking at expanding our programme to include workshops on building confidence, managing emotions, building skills for recovery, meditation etc.
What is unique about TRC is that everyone involved in it has lived experience of addictions, depression/anxiety and domestic abuse, either themselves or a friend/loved one. This gives us a totally person-centred perspective and we are able reach people in ways others cannot.
TRC now have our very own Community Recovery Hub where people can attend support groups, drop in sessions for a chat, educational sessions, In the future TRC want to develop a community coffee morning where anyone can drop in just for a chat or to say hello and have a community notice board where people can exchange interests etc and I’m calling this Community Connexions.
Any monies that we receive will go into developing this community connexions network with the aim of building a community network almost so that people know they always have somewhere to go when they need help, a chat or a coffee, the impact on people’s mental health and sense of belonging will be immeasurable. I will also be promoting this on local radio with Cassie James who is very supportive of us.
