The Rutland Centre, Ireland’s foremost addiction treatment centre, was honoured with the Patient Education/Lifestyle Project of the Year award at the prestigious ‘Irish Healthcare Centre Awards on Friday 27^th September 2019. The Rutland Centre received its award for its Recovery Month 2018 campaign entitled, ‘Give Recovery a Voice’. The campaign aimed to raise awareness of the concept of ‘Recovery’ and of the positive effects of addiction treatment through the shared stories of people who had achieved Recovery from addiction.

The word ‘addiction’ has powerful negative connotations that can lead to the stigmatisation of the hundreds of families throughout Ireland who are affected. The Rutland Centre’s annual campaign, Recovery Month, aims to break this stigma. In 2018, the Rutland Centres’ Recovery Month campaign was entitled 'Give Recovery a Voice'. The campaign was run across traditional and social media and centred around a powerful series of videos that aimed to educate people on the concept of ‘Recovery’ and raise awareness of the positive effects of addiction treatment. Treatment counsellors from the Rutland Centre shared their information on what ‘Recovery’ is and how it could be achieved. Former clients of the Rutland Centre’s shared their experiences of achieving ‘Recovery’ with the aim of encouraging others to come forward and to break down the stigma associated with addiction.

The campaign succeeded in raising awareness of addiction and Recovery as evidenced through increased web traffic to the Rutland Centre’s website, increased engagement on its social media channels and through the media coverage earned over the course of the campaign. The Rutland Centre itself experienced an increase in enquiries for its services during the campaign period indicating that people had been encouraged to come forward and seek treatment for addiction as a result of the campaign.

The Rutland Centre worked with digital agency, Together Digital, and public relations consultancy, Vital Communications, on the Recovery Month campaign.