Hartlepool has signed up to the Inclusive Recovery Cities pledge, joining an international movement that aims to make recovery from addiction more visible, supported and rooted in everyday community life.
Hartlepool Borough Council is marking the pledge alongside Start and Recovery Connections. It was signed earlier this year at the opening of Start’s new drug and alcohol centre on Whitby Street.
The council says the £3.2 million centre has now been open for eight months and provides a base for high-quality drug and alcohol support for local residents. The wider Recovery Cities approach focuses on reducing stigma and recognising the role that families, communities, services and people with lived experience can play in helping recovery last.
For Hartlepool, the pledge gives a public identity to work already taking place locally and signals an intention to keep recovery connected to opportunity, belonging and community participation rather than treating it as something that happens behind closed doors.