Salford: towards a recovery‐oriented city Available to Purchase

This report concerns itself with the process of change that has been underway in the city of Salford, concerning the adoption of a recovery‐oriented system of care. The paper contains the observations of the lead commissioner for drug treatment in Salford on the process of this change. The paper is influenced by William White's perspectives on recovery in Philadelphia and makes observations on their application in the British context. Finally, there is some discussion of whether this recovery approach constitutes a ‘paradigm change’ in UK drug policy. The information provided in this paper was gathered between January 2009 and July 2010. The methods included 12 initial unstructured interviews with service users self‐defined as ‘in recovery’, combined with two focus groups with seven service users and six members of staff. This initial work was then supplemented with three further focus groups conducted during the summer of 2009, involving 23 front line staff during the summer and autumn of 2009 and 52 consumer satisfaction questionnaires conducted prior to Christmas 2009. A further 40 semi‐structured interviews with service users who self‐defined as being in recovery were also concluded during the spring and summer of 2010.