About CLERO
Started in 2020 by a group of LERO leaders who met online during the pandemic, the College of Lived Experience Recovery Organisations has grown into a national community and a movement.
Our mission
To develop a Recovery Strategy signed up to by key leadership figures and organisations across the UK's addiction recovery sector — with Lived Experience Recovery Organisations at its centre and active citizenship at its core.
We want to build coherence, trust, credibility and consensus for recovery groups and communities, based on a model that promotes an evidence-based approach predicated on lived experience. At its heart that model has a human rights framework and core values drawn from Recovery Oriented Systems of Care (ROSC).
Three principles
Everything CLERO says about LEROs starts here.
LEROs are informed by a primary relationship with their community. They act in response to the needs and aspirations of that community, recognising and employing the assets and competencies that already exist.
Everything done in and by a LERO is informed through co-production.
LEROs are informed by a human rights-based approach, including the right to live healthy lives.
Our values
- Community
- Inclusivity & equality
- Honesty & transparency
- People-centred & strengths-based
- Promote & champion lived experience
How we got here
The founders came together during the pandemic of 2020, initially to do little more than discuss whether the LEROs of the UK could be brought together at all. Out of those conversations came the Recovery Connectors group, then CLERO itself.
Since then the network has produced the National LERO Standards with support from the OHID alcohol and drug treatment and recovery team, worked alongside the OHID-funded LERO Capacity Building Project on masterclasses and a mentor programme, built a library of around 30 policy templates, and mapped more than sixty LEROs across the UK.
The board
CLERO's Connectors are all people who lead LEROs. Board membership is renewed from within the network.
Dot Smith
Founding member · CEO, Recovery ConnectionsA LERO advocate and CEO of Recovery Connections, based in Middlesbrough and other parts of the North East. Lived experience of family addiction and trauma; 38 years in mental health and addiction support.
Dave Higham
Founding member · CEO, Warrior Down LEROHas run a Lived Experience Recovery Organisation for 15 years, working alongside others to make sure LEROs across the UK have the support and voice they deserve.
Dave Memery
Founder & CEO, Create Strength GroupCSG is a LERO in Bradford for chronic problematic use of cannabis, spice and synthetic substances. Believes lived experience is the key to recovery solutions, and that LEROs should be setting and driving the agenda.
Sohan Singh Sahota
Co-founder, BAC-IN 2 Life RecoveryAn accredited counsellor and psychotherapist. For almost 30 years he has promoted recovery and inclusion and advocated for ethnic-minority user voice across the UK.
Larry Eve
Operations Manager, The Basement ProjectManages a long-established LERO in West Yorkshire and has been a CLERO board member for over two years. Pushes for authentic, peer-led recovery that is visible and accessible in every community.
Lanre Babalola
Co-founder & CEO, BUBICBringing Unity Back Into the Community is a grassroots peer-led organisation in Tottenham, grown into a trusted community service on the belief that the community knows what the community needs.
James Sadler
CEO, DATUSRepresents DATUS in Birmingham, an established LERO of 20 years. Passionate about more effective ways of meeting needs and delivering services led by those most affected.
Advisors
Researchers and practitioners who bring evidence and policy reach to the network.
David Best
Leeds Trinity University and STAR RecoveryProfessor of Criminology researching addiction recovery, desistance from offending, recovery capital and pathways to recovery.
Ed Day
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust · University of BirminghamThe UK government's drug Recovery Champion; a clinician who has led the orientation of clinical practice towards recovery, with a research interest in recovery support services and mutual aid.
Tracey Ford
Operations & Development Manager, Sheffield City CouncilChair of Sheffield Recovery Community and lead for Inclusive Recovery Cities. Author of Blood Is Thicker Than Alcohol and founder of the SWIPE Women's Network.
Prototype note: photo placeholders show initials. Original headshots are needed from CLERO — the ones on the current site are mixed sizes and two are black-and-white.