We Are With You, Glasgow Recovery Hub. Pic shows: the nearby community garden.
Over the years, the work we do with our local partners has taken many forms. When the first Covid lockdown hit Glasgow in March 2020, we all saw firsthand the importance of working together. Within days we were helping the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Service (ADRS) by delivering prescriptions and checking on high risk clients, we worked with our local peer-led recovery communities to deliver food parcels, and we set-up a city-wide online support group on behalf of the three hubs, ADRS and the recovery community.
When I think of partnership working, that’s what it looks like. People who know each other, trust each other, and share one goal: improving the lives of everyone in our local communities.
Last month some colleagues and I attended VHS’ annual conference, which this year had the theme ‘Collaboration for Change’. It got me thinking about the 20 years WithYou has been delivering services in Glasgow. We’ve built relationships with more than 50 partners in that time, and whilst we’re a national charity serving England and Scotland, every service is deeply embedded in its local area. Glasgow has its own landscape, its own communities, and its own challenges. Local partnerships aren’t just nice to have, they’re how we deliver the best possible care for our clients, and put them at the heart of everything we do.
Meeting People Where They Are
We currently hold appointments and offer support from over 25 partner venues across the city – places like Glasgow Women’s Library, Garthamloch Parish Church, and health centres in areas such as Springburn and Woodside in Maryhill. Reaching our clients where they are makes it easier for them to keep engaging with us. And when we work from these spaces, we can facilitate genuinely holistic recovery offers that go far beyond what we could do on our own.
One of our partners is a local optician who comes into our service to carry out eye tests and arrange prescription glasses. Another – Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland – provides health checks and advice to help our clients stay fit. These sound like small things, but these partners make the difference between our clients getting the care they need, or not.
Growing Together
But it’s not just about what our partners can do for us – it’s what we can do together. The ‘Roots to Recovery’ project, developed with the Calton community at Elcho Gardens, won the local Evening Times Health & Wellbeing Award. It gives people access to green space and community growing, which have a therapeutic benefit to recovery and help reduce stigma. They built it, they maintain it, they’re proud of it.
The same principle underpins our work with ScotRail. Our clients have adopted the train station in Shettleston – helping maintain it through basic upkeep and planting. Our clients say it makes them proud to give back to their local community and hear people praising the work they’ve done, Scotrail gets a tidy and beautiful station, and every local resident who uses the train network gets to enjoy it too.
We facilitate in-house training sessions through City of Glasgow College and work with a range of local training providers including Elevate Glasgow, Jobs and Business Glasgow, and Kelvin College. Our partner In Cahootz run weekly drama sessions as part of the project ‘Creative Citizens’ – helping our clients to build confidence and get involved in the arts. These partners help our clients to envisage the future, and to build the lives they want to lead.
Lived Experience at the Heart of Everything
Perhaps our most important partners are the clients themselves. We hold co-production panels, focus groups and surveys because their thoughts and feedback need to underpin everything we do. They, more than anyone, know what works, what doesn’t, and what we’re missing. Empowering lived experience recovery communities means sharing our expertise and experience with people who have their own expertise and experience to contribute.
Of course, working in partnership has real challenges – data-sharing across different systems, a variety of processes and ways of working to navigate, finding time for relationship building when everyone is stretched – but I am certain it’s worth it. The integrated system of care we’ve built in Glasgow, which puts clients at the heart of everything, wouldn’t be possible without these partners.
Recovery doesn’t happen in isolation, and neither does the work that supports it.
We are with you was an exhibitor in our Health Creation Hub at the VHS Annual Conference 2025.
