Speaker Name: Annmarie Ward
Session Description:
This session offers a grounded international perspective on what it means to build a genuinely recovery-oriented system of care, drawing on frontline experience from across the United Kingdom.
Despite shared geography and similar funding frameworks, England and Scotland have taken increasingly different approaches to addiction. Scotland continues to experience one of the highest drug-related death rates in Europe, while England, although far from where it needs to be, has seen comparatively more stability in outcomes.
A growing body of experience suggests that part of this divergence lies in system orientation. In Scotland, services have become increasingly weighted toward harm reduction and stabilisation, often without consistent or accessible pathways into treatment, recovery, and reintegration. In England, there has been a renewed emphasis on treatment capacity, recovery pathways, and accountability for outcomes.
The result is not a simple contrast, but a revealing one. Systems that are highly effective at managing risk can still struggle to support long-term change if recovery is not structurally prioritised.
Through the work of Faces & Voices of Recovery UK, the UK Recovery Declaration of Rights, the campaign for a Right to Recovery Bill, and national mobilisation through the UK Recovery Walk, communities are articulating a different vision, one that places recovery, dignity, and reintegration at the centre of policy and practice.
Set alongside Alberta’s evolving recovery-oriented system, this session offers both reflection and encouragement. It highlights the importance of system orientation, while recognising the leadership Alberta is showing in building a model that is now informing and inspiring recovery efforts internationally.
Learning Objectives:
To examine how system orientation influences addiction outcomes, using comparative insights from Scotland and England; to understand the gap between stabilisation and sustained recovery; and to identify key components required to build effective, recovery-oriented pathways into treatment, recovery, and long-term reintegration within real-world policy and service environments.
References:
Kelly, J. F., Humphreys, K., & Ferri, M. (2020). Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12‐step programs for alcohol use disorder. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (3), CD012880.
UK Government (2021). From Harm to Hope: A 10-Year Drugs Plan to Cut Crime and Save Lives. London: HM Government.
Public Health Scotland (2024). Drug-Related Deaths in Scotland: National Statistics. Edinburgh: Public Health Scotland.
Alberta Health (2023). Alberta Recovery-Oriented System of Care: Overview and Implementation. Government of Alberta.
Cloud, W., & Granfield, R. (2008). Conceptualising recovery capital: Expansion of a theoretical construct. Substance Use & Misuse, 43(12-13), 1971–1986.
BIO
Annemarie Ward is CEO of Faces & Voices of Recovery UK and one of the UK’s most prominent advocates for recovery-oriented drug policy. With lived experience of addiction and sustained recovery, she has become a leading voice in shaping systems that move beyond stabilisation toward lasting change, and is often described as a conscience of the sector.
She was the architect of the Right to Recovery Bill in Scotland, a proposal designed to create enforceable access to treatment and residential rehabilitation for those locked out by poverty. She also led the development of the UK Recovery Declaration of Rights.
Annemarie is the founder of the UK Recovery Walk, the largest recovery advocacy events in Europe.
Her work focuses on challenging the institutional and political barriers that prevent recovery from being realised in practice, and on making the case that recovery is not a privilege, but a right.