• Actively promotes and supports visible recovery.

• Challenges stigma and discrimination, and champions diverse pathways to recovery through effective community engagement.

• Embraces the reciprocal role of the recovery community in enhancing the overall quality of life for the broader community.

• Demonstrates that recovery events can be a vibrant part of civic life, dispelling stigma through positive connection and the generation of new assets for the entire community. 

• Centered on the understanding that sustained recovery takes root in the community.

• A ‘super-charged’ Recovery Oriented System of Care (ROSC) emphasizing the role of the community in supporting recovery.

• On October 8, 2024, then Mayor LeVar Stoney signed a Proclamation pledging support for Richmond to become an IRC.

• Mission and Vision have been developed, and Richmond signed the IRC Charter.

• A Board was established featuring various grass-roots recovery and community organizations, specialist addiction treatment services, and a representative from the city.

• Host and sponsor a number of recovery events annually that will be inclusive and enjoyable, promoting ways of celebrating recovery and contributing to the community.

• Challenge discrimination, especially social distancing, through increased levels of contact between the public and people in recovery.

• The mutual benefit that people in recovery, individually, and as part of the city, are part of a vibrant and integrated recovery community, that makes the city a better place for everyone. 

• Bring people together from different and diverse groups to create new kinds of positive contacts in a spirit of wellbeing and enjoyment. 

• Experience growth and shared benefits for the City of Richmond through new collaborative networks, connections, and resources.

Currently, there are 10 cities in the United Kingdom, 14 in the Balkan region, and other cities all over the world engaging with the inclusive recovery cities movement.

• Connectedness

• Hope

• Identity

• Meaning

• Empowerment