Ballymun Recovery
Our Team
MULTIPLE LOCATIONS.
TAKE YOUR
NEXT STEP.
YOU MAKE
A DIFFERENCE.
2023 Committee
Brian Foley
Roisin Byrne
Catriona Nally
Karen Dowling
Angie Birch
Clio Power
Our History: Ballymun Recovery began in 2019
In 2019, YAP staff members met with a group of service users to discuss how YAP could celebrate recovery month. By the end of the meeting the group was clear that celebrating recovery needed to be a community wide activity and not confined to a lone local service. For the next meeting YAP staff invited additional service users, concerned others, staff from other local addiction services and members of local fellowship meetings. By the close of the meeting Ballymun Recovery was created with the aims of promoting & celebrating recovery, challenging stigma and to increase hope & optimism that change is possible. Recovery is for everyone, every family and every community.
We’ve grown from a humble start into a community led, community wide, collaborative recovery response within Ballymun, serving as a beacon of hope and transformation for individuals, families and for a community.
Our Aims: Challenging stigma, promoting recovery, and increasing hope
Our aims were established in 2019 and continue to guide us as we design events, activities and initiatives.
Alcohol and Illicit substance use are two of the most stigmatised health conditions in the world, (The World Health Report. Mental Health: New Understandings, New Hope, 2001). Addiction and stigma cause isolation and destruct the individual’s sense of self. The reduction of stigma creates a safe space for the promotion of bridging recovery capital and championing the broader social justice values of recovery as a social movement for change.
Celebrating and talking about recovery is taking power back and not allowing yourself be trapped in the silence reinforced by stigma. Ballymun Recovery promote recovery on many layers and the power of multiple levels and layers is key in enabling a community to show up for itself and for it’s members.
Hope is very important for individuals, family members and for the community, they can feel so helpless in the face of on going substance use. Allowing people to see recovery, active, present and alive in their community, helps people see it is possible. Recovery is energising, it’s reinforcing, it’s contagious, it’s dynamic and it’s exuberant.
Ballymun Recovery and the community:
The strength of Ballymun Recovery lies in our community, a unique combination of professional service providers, community members, families and individuals who have personally navigated the journey of recovery.
Ballymun Recovery and recovery month provide both personal opportunities to celebrate recovery and opportunities to celebrate a community identity, which encourages people to connect with each other, members of Ballymun Recovery and the concept. The concept of Ballymun Recovery acts as a symbol of successful community action that people in recovery and local people can connect to. David Best commented on the importance of recognising that the solution to addiction problems lies not merely in pharmacotherapy and counselling but in engagement with the lived community, (Best, 2012).
The Story Behind the Symbol: Designing the Ballymun Recovery Logo
Summary: Inspired by the unwavering spirit and sense of togetherness inherent to Ballymun, the Recovery logo symbolizes unity, acceptance, and mutual support. The design captures the essence of the community’s resilient journey towards healing, while celebrating the power of collective recovery.
