About the well Communities
The Well Communities is a not-for-profit community interest company founded in 2012, built on the belief that recovery and wellbeing is possible for everyone.
From our hubs in Barrow, Morecambe, Carlisle, and Kendal, we work at the heart of local communities to support people’s health and wellbeing. Our approach is rooted in recovery-oriented systems of care - meaning we focus not just on treatment, but on building hope, resilience, and lasting change.
We bring together lived experience, professional expertise, and community partnerships to create safe, supportive spaces where people can heal, grow, and reconnect with life. Whether it’s through housing, training, mentoring, or social activities, our goal is simple: to help people feel included, empowered, and part of something bigger.
Lived Experience at the Heart of What We Do
At The Well Communities, support is always here - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Everything we offer is free to members and delivered by a team who truly understand, because many of us have been through similar challenges ourselves.
Our staff and volunteers bring lived experience of addiction, mental health struggles, offending behaviour, childhood trauma, learning difficulties, domestic abuse, and homelessness. This means we don’t just offer support, we offer empathy, understanding, and hope.
Over the past ten years, we’ve grown into a trusted and respected recovery community across Cumbria, North Lancashire, and beyond. Today, 64.5% of our staff once used our services, proving that recovery is not only possible, but powerful.
Our approach is different, and it works. Where other services may fall short, our unique mix of compassion, experience, and expertise helps people find a way forward. We’re proud to work alongside the NHS, police, probation, prisons, social services, and local councils but at the centre of it all is community, walking side by side toward recovery.
We support people facing a wide range of challenges, offering flexible options through our Hub & Spoke model, so everyone can find the support that works best for them.
OUR Mission
Our mission is to bring hope and healing to individuals and families affected by substance misuse, supporting them to rebuild their lives, strengthen resilience and reconnect with their communities.
OUR Vision
Our vision is a compassionate and inclusive community where recovery is possible for everyone - where individuals are empowered to reach their full potential and families are supported to heal, grow and thrive together.
Creating the Right Culture: Core Conditions For Recovery
The Well Communities believe that we cannot build the community around the service, but rather we should be building the service around the community. We developed the core conditions for recovery which we use in our daily practice to provide a trauma-safe environment for people who struggle with substance misuse.
Our Values
Safety: We create an environment of safety in everything we do with our staff, the users of our services and the wider recovery community. Safety provides the foundation for the work we do and the recovery we seek to promote and support.
Resilience: We recognize that recovery is a journey that requires resilience to achieve and maintain. We build resilience in our staff, the people we work with and the wider recovery community to allow us to support one another through challenging times.
Integrity: We work with integrity and transparency in all aspects of the work we undertake. This is the foundation of building healthy, trusting and collaborative relationships with everyone we work with and alongside.
Empowerment: We recognise that our recovery journey is our own and we have the right to choose our own path. We promote empowerment in all of our relationships and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our colleagues, the people we work with and our stakeholders to seek solutions with them.
Love: We work with love and compassion at the forefront of our minds. We will love everybody that enters our service until they are able to love themselves.
Our Direction Principles
TRANSFORM our operational capabilities by stabilising the organisation, getting the basics right all the time, relentlessly focusing on quality-of-service delivery & consistency. We will continue to invest in our people through training, supervision and our “future leaders” academy.
STRENGTHEN our offer by single-mindedly focusing on areas & workstreams where we make a real impact on communities. Through transparent working we will foster a collaborative & open approach with all our stakeholders; commissioners, local authorities, statutory services and VCFSE colleagues.
GROW by developing existing & new workstreams where the power of Lived Experience can bring tangible benefits to individuals, families & communities across our geographical footprint.