Intuitive Thinking Skills’ Ambassador Programme is the culmination of 20 years of experience in public sector services and is now a leading light of the LERO agenda. We live and breathe the harnessing of lived experience to create powerful role models of recovery
THE ORIGINAL
LERO
FOUNDED IN 2005, Intuitive Thinking Skills provides mentoring and courses designed and delivered by people with lived experience. By empowering through education, we take a unique approach to building people’ s knowledge, practical skills and thinking tools to support independence.
With 120 staff across England and Wales, Intuitive Thinking Skills works across a range of sectors, including criminal justice, drugs and alcohol, mental health, employment, domestic abuse and homelessness.
PARTNERSHIPS Everything Intuitive Thinking Skills does is within wider partnerships, reflecting the complexity of our participants’ needs – be it clinical harm reduction, physical and mental health services, or personal resilience. Our partnerships enable the development of local recovery networks that talk to the needs of individuals and their communities.
It was from this perspective that we developed our Ambassador Programme – a local, community-based approach to harnessing the lived experience of people coming through services who want to give back, to develop positive networks for themselves and for others.
AMBASSADOR PROGRAMME Starting a community-based initiative can be daunting, and the complexities of statutory obligations can make it difficult to get a good idea off the ground. So, it occurred to us: why not strip community volunteers of red tape obligations? Why not support them to risk assess, help write business plans, check statutory requirements, and perhaps provide them with some localised funding to help them become self-sufficient?
And so the Ambassador Programme was born. We developed our own Level 2 Information and Guidance qualification as a base standard on which to develop the professional skills of people interested in volunteering or starting their own communitybased services. Further enhanced with additional training covering boundaries, risk and escalation, and domestic abuse awareness, our ambassadors end the programme with a strong professional grounding on which to build their future careers.
We create the stage on which our ambassadors dance! It is our job to facilitate great ideas that come from people who want to develop their communities for the better, to provide places of refuge and recovery, to inspire their communities to take control and create meaningful services of their own.
Intuitive Thinking Skills was established in 2005, inspired by the personal journey of founder Peter Bentley and his experience of the Manchester drug and alcohol service. Peter recalls the early days:
Services back in 2005 were much more focused on harm reduction than recovery outcomes. The services I encountered after my detox were all very low in aspiration. Many saw me as a problem rather than as a skilled, resilient individual who had survived the ravages of addiction.
This seemed counterintuitive to me. I met many people in treatment services with truly stunning back stories, and the one thing that struck me was the incredible resilience they had all shown in coming through tough times. It was this innate toughness I saw, not a broken person.
One of the early contacts I made was my co-founder Zack Haider, who has a wealth of lived experience. Together, we developed our flagship programme Intuitive Recovery. We wanted to offer our own graduates the opportunity to work in this field, not as volunteers but as paid employees. All abstinent, all graduates of this different approach, all being paid and developing meaningful careers due to their deep understanding of the problems our learners face.
Fast forward 20 years and Intuitive Thinking Skills has developed a reputation for delivering practical, educational, attitude change pro grammes, with lived experience at their heart.
PROMOTIONAL FEATURE JULY / AUGUST 2025 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS