Founded by three people
who know what it's like.

Second Story Recovery is a peer-led Community Interest Company based in Halton. It was built by people with lived experience of addiction, mental health, and homelessness — not to replace the services that exist, but to fill the space between them.

Halton-based Registered CIC Member of CLERO

Our story

Built by people who've lived it.

Second Story was founded by three people with their own lived experience of addiction, mental health, and homelessness. Not clinicians. Not commissioners. People who sat in the gap and decided to do something about it.

Meet the team

01

The gap

Something was missing

Three people — each with their own experience of addiction, mental health, and homelessness — kept noticing the same thing: brilliant clinical services, and a long, hard stretch between appointments where people were left to manage alone.
02

The decision

Three founders. One idea.

Rather than wait for someone else to fill the gap, they decided to fill it themselves. Not with a clinic or a helpline — but with warm rooms, familiar faces, and the kind of understanding that only comes from having been there.
03

Finding our people

Joining CLERO

We found our home in CLERO — a national network of grassroots, peer-led recovery organisations. It gave us a framework, a training standard, and friends in dozens of other towns who'd already figured out what we were trying to do.
04

Making it official · 2026

Registered as a CIC

We registered as a Community Interest Company — No. 16978450 — to formalise what we were building and unlock the funding and partnerships we needed. Working alongside CGL Halton and supported by Halton Borough Council from the start.
Now

Today

Twelve groups a week. Just getting started.

Free community groups running across Widnes and Runcorn — no referral, no waiting list, no paperwork. Just a warm room and people who get it. The kettle's on. Come in.

Lived experience first.

Every room we open is led by someone who has walked the road. Not consulted. Led.

Free, forever.

No-one pays to walk in. We protect that with our funding, our partnerships and our budget.

Beside, not instead.

We don't replace clinical services. We sit alongside them — and walk people to the door of one if they ask.

Halton, and proud of it.

We're a local CIC by design. We know the bus routes, the GP surgeries, and the community spaces where people already feel safe.

Our team

4 people. 4 second stories.

People with lived experience of addiction, mental health, and homelessness — not clinicians, not commissioners. Between us we hold the rooms together and show up for the people in them.

The founder

Maz Owens

Tom McGauley

Michelle Fox

Kayla Marie

We're a member of CLERO

We don't do this alone.

The College of Lived Experience Recovery Organisations (CLERO) has grown into an impactful community and movement — a national network of grassroots, peer-led recovery organisations who share what we learn, train each other, and speak with one voice to government.

Being part of CLERO means our small Halton CIC stands on the shoulders of dozens of others — and offers ours back. It's how a Tuesday-night kitchen scales without losing the kitchen.

Visit CLERO

120+

Lived-experience recovery organisations across the UK, sharing rooms and resources.

Shared charter — peer-led, free at the point of need, and accountable to the people in the rooms.

What CLERO membership gives us

→A national peer-supporter training standard we hold ourselves to.
→A safeguarding and clinical-handover framework, co-written with the NHS.
→A seat at the table when policy gets written about us.
→Friends in 120 other towns who answer when we phone.

A few of our CLERO siblings

Red Rose Recovery · Build on Belief · Recovery Connections · BUBIC · DATUS

The opposite of addiction isn't sobriety.
It's a Tuesday-night kitchen with the lights on, somebody making the second pot of tea, and nobody checking the time.

The Second Story Manifesto

Second Story Recovery CIC

If you're reading this at 3am