Scottish Recovery Consortium Communication Strategy 2017
The SRC is both an agent of change and a thought leader in the field of recovery from addiction in Scotland. Over the last five years we have created a public and social media presence that is strong, vibrant and growing. Our communications strategy covers all forms of communication that emerge from the organisation’s staff, volunteers and Board. All communications whether they are verbal, written, visual or symbolic demonstrate the SRC ethos and Brand values in action. The whole SRC team takes day-to-day responsibility for the SRC communication strategy.
The SRC ethos and method
We believe that the whole community can benefit from the experiences and contributions of people and organisations in recovery. An expression of recovery ethos in the SRC includes an assertive focus away from the problems of addiction towards the benefits that recovery brings to the whole community. We are driven by asset based approaches, co-producing events with local and national activists that increase both the visibility and the spread of recovery from addiction in Scotland. In all of our activity we model the values and practices that help recovery from addiction flourish.
The SRC Brand Values
Our brand values have developed in line with our recovery-orientated approach and help to frame both our work and our interactions with external organisations and opportunities as they arise.
- We place the Lived Experience of recovery from addiction at the heart of what we do
- Our events and products are free at the point of delivery
- We are our own media
- We share freely and openly what we have and seek only acknowledgement where it came from in return.
Social Media and Online based contributions to new outcomes.
- Standing outcome 1: We made recovery from addiction more contagious, achievable and sustainable for individuals who seek it.
Our key messages in this area of work are aimed at people seeking recovery and people helping those still suffering from addiction. We want them to focus on the recovery, its contagious so catch it from people who have it. We want to make recovery even more hip and happening and connected. The issue is Dislocation. The Solution is Community. First thing we do to make community is welcome people in and stay connected
Key Message: The opposite of addiction is connection.
Key Message: Recovery creates welcoming compassionate and connected communities
To contribute to these messages we will curate a set of podcast recovery shares on our site, a recovery film you tube channel. We will make space on our site for people still suffering form addiction and ensure they too stay connected. We will launch and make Methadone memoirs available as PDF on the site and create methadone recovery stories and resources available.
- Standing outcome 2: We developed the reach and depth of the recovery movement’s responses to addiction and sustaining recovery from addiction.
Our messages here are aimed at people involved in the visible recovery communities right now and those in recovery who have not yet heard of or considered joining this visible community of activists. We want to increase participation in recovery movement. We want recovery communities to be welcoming communities. We want them to consider deepening their use of existing community assets and resources and finding out how they (or their friends) might already have much of what they need. The recovery communities are the harbinger of what a flourishing Scotland might look like and may be a beacon for the whole country’s journey of recovery from disconnection and dislocation. We want to move assertively away from a focus on the problems of addiction and towards the benefits that recovery from addiction can bring to the whole country.
Key Message: Change stigma to respect: make contact& make the recovery visible
Key Message: The opposite of addiction is connection.
Key Message: Recovery creates welcoming compassionate and connectedcommunities
We will link with recovery filmmakers and social reporters to ensure a steady flow of stories, pictures and films that demonstrate and share those values. Using our home page film slot and Facebook we can have regular slots around these messages. With their help every SRC event will be filmed and reported on. We will publish a listing of all the visible recovery groups and communities in Scotland.
Our Facebook and Twitter pages will be platforms we can encourage people to gather on and share what’s happening in the whole movement and related movements. We want to grow our Facebook likes.
- Standing Outcome 3: Connected & engaged with the whole population to co-create communities & a country where it is the recovery, not the addiction, that flourishes.
Our messages here are aimed at people who are already change makers in Scotland and Internationally. They are also aimed at people whose work or lives are affected directly of indirectly by addictions or those who can influence opportunities for people in recovery.
We want them to become more aware of the recovery and the benefits that recovery from addiction brings the individual, the family and the community. We want them to experience recovery for themselves by visiting a recovery meeting or community. We want them to know how to help people who disclose addictions.
Key Message: People do recover
Key Message: Better Than Well
Key Message: Recovery Communities and support groups are thriving and growing
Key Message: Be part of the solution: talk more recovery than addiction.
Key Message: It’s not the media’s opinion we want to change it’s yours.
We will have resources on our site for people who want to help, stories, workbooks, links and films. We will publish a listing of all the visible recovery groups and communities in Scotland. We will assertively link people at our events to our social media platforms. We will also co-create arts based performance pieces around recovery to stimulate dialogue and attitude change. We will seek to spread the impact of our films and podcasts by inviting other organisations to post links.
- Standing outcome 4: Created a recovery-orientated charity that supports the work of building recovery from addiction in Scotland
Our message is aimed at all of our stakeholders and contacts in the course of our work. We want people to see that Recovery from addiction brings honesty, openness and a human centred work ethic and approaches. We want people to bring their whole selves to the organizational table, their dreams, hopes and aspirations as well as their pain, struggles and hardships.
Key Message: We are co creating a culture of recovery, we are walking our talk.
We communicate this by deliberately cultivating our recovery culture in meetings in events and in our daily lives. We leave space for feelings, take time out to breathe and encourage big groups to take on small tasks. Opportunities for humans to experience connection will be made explicit in every meeting at every event.
SRC Website 2017 actions Stream line reports – archive out of date materials (pre 2016 April) Change resources lay out and headings. Make Web Mobile phone compatible. Create a Communities listing map that is self-updating. Registrations that automatically populate an excel spreadsheet. Actively curate personal recovery resources and resources for supporters
SRC Face book actions/ SRC twitter actions- Keep lively and grateful! Our major information and news spaces
Other SRC- U Tube channel and Podcast channel to be created and promoted
Press and media relations
While we still feel that we have no place engaging with mainstream press, we acknowledge kinship with many new independent news outlets. Positively Scottish was embedded at RWS2016 and that worked well, they also attended the Recovering Justice event. We are open to dialogue with niche news and media outlets and as part of the 7 cities we will experiment with local radio and regional newspapers. Our goal in all of these is not to drawn into controversy, not to be drawn into telling stories of the problems or our addictions on their worst days. Our goal is to focus on the recovery and the asset that the recovery community represents to the whole country.
Approved May 2017
Review 2018
Scottish Recovery Consortium, 2/1, 30 Bell Street, Glasgow, G1 1LG
Charity Number: SC041181 Telephone Number: 0141 552 1355