Recovery & Peer Support

Recovery doesn't happen to people. It happens with them.

At KF, lived experience sits at the heart of our recovery support. We understand that recovery isn't linear, doesn't look the same for everyone and certainly doesn't begin and end with treatment.

For some people, recovery means abstinence. For others, it starts with reducing harm, making one safer decision or simply having somewhere to turn up where nobody is going to judge them.

We meet people where they are.

Our peer and one-to-one support creates space for honest conversations about substance use, recovery, relapse, mental health, relationships, identity and everything else that tends to come with trying to change your life.

There is no requirement to arrive at KF with recovery figured out. You don't need the right language, a diagnosis or a perfect treatment history. You just need somewhere to start.

What this looks like

Through our Recovering Together programme, peer support, recovery groups and community provision, we offer:

• One-to-one lived-experience recovery support

• Peer support and recovery groups

• Individual recovery planning

• Harm reduction and harm minimisation

• Relapse prevention and support following relapse

• Support before, during and after structured treatment

• Recovery capital building

• Mental health and emotional wellbeing support

• Counselling opportunities through our developing counselling provision

• Practical support with the things that can make recovery harder

• Connection into specialist treatment and other services when needed

• Activities and opportunities that help people rediscover who they are beyond substance use

Our approach is deliberately flexible because people's lives don't fit neatly into service specifications.

Someone might initially come to us because they're worried about their drinking and six months later be volunteering, attending activities, supporting somebody else or exploring education and employment.

That's recovery too.

We work alongside statutory treatment providers, health services and other community organisations rather than attempting to replace clinical treatment. As a Lived Experience Recovery Organisation, our strength is often in the spaces around formal services: engagement, relationships, trust, community, continuity and helping somebody build a life they actually want to remain in recovery for.

Where we're going

We want to continue developing genuinely person-led recovery pathways across Derbyshire, increasing access to peer support, lived-experience recovery navigation, counselling, harm reduction and recovery communities.

Our ambition isn't simply to help more people stop using substances.

It's to help more people build lives where substances no longer need to be the answer.