 About
Our Recovery was born from lived experience.
Founder Angie Clerc-Hawke knows pain firsthand. Her journey—from navigating pain to studying medical science—revealed not just the science behind her experience, but the gaps in how we care for people living with it.
It wasn’t textbooks that really shaped Angie’s path. It was the power of peers—real, human connection—that transformed her recovery. Inspired by this, she created Our Recovery, a strengths-based, peer-led program designed by and for people living with pain.
Launched in 2021 as a not-for-profit, Our Recovery offers a space for connection, self-discovery, and long-term support. It’s more than a program—it’s a community where people gain tools, confidence, and agency over their own health.
In 2023, Angie partnered with Professor Toby Newton-John from University of Technology Sydney, and a group of amazing researchers and consumer researchers. Together they secured a national Consumer-Led Research Grant to build and pilot the program—proving that lived experience can drive innovation and change in pain care.
Turning pain into purpose — and community.
At Our Recovery, lived experience isn't just part of the story—it’s at the heart of everything we do.
This isn’t a program built for people with pain from the outside looking in. From vision to action, Our Recovery is led by people who know pain personally.
Through a lived experience-led model, Our Recovery shifts the balance of power—placing people with lived experience at the centre of every decision. They have real agency in how the program is designed, how the research is conducted, and in delivering support.
That same sense of agency is embedded in the program itself. Participants are not told what to do or believe — they're supported to explore what works for them, on their own terms. By reconnecting with their strengths, values, and insights, people living with pain learn to take back control of their health and their lives.
By bringing lived experience and scientific research together, we’re creating something different: a community-led response to chronic pain that puts empathy, agency, and belonging at the centre.
