In a context in which institutions recommend addressing health challenges through patient engagement, we have chosen to develop and pilot a territorial support unit dedicated to recovery from addiction, in partnership with people directly affected by addictive disorders.

To co-design and experiment this unit, strategic hypotheses (regarding criteria for identifying patient partners, methods, etc.) were explicitly formulated to assess their alignment with best practice recommendations and their relevance in practice. To identify and characterize learnings, qualitative interviews were conducted after each support session led by patient partners. In addition, a Socratic dialogue approach was used to foster awareness and articulation of experiential knowledge—both in supporting service users and in collaboration with professionals.

This project led to the development and pilot implementation of a territorial support unit dedicated to addiction recovery pathways, and showed that a pragmatic, iterative approach can effectively address the complexity of territorial health challenges. It also provided an opportunity to identify and articulate experiential knowledge mobilized by patient-partners in supporting peers and engaging with professionals. Finally, analysis of project enabled the identification of five key success factors for implementing a health partnership initiative.

The key success factors identified in this project align with current national recommendations on patient engagement. Moreover, the findings open up new avenues for research, particularly regarding the articulation and integration of professionals’ experiential knowledge with that of patient-partners, the impact of patient-partners on recovery outcomes, and the transferability of this model to other health challenges.

Through its territorial anchoring and the high level of engagement of patient-partners throughout the project–from framing the territorial challenge to co-authoring this article—this work represents an encouraging experience for health democracy. Beyond the success of this pilot project, which has since secured financial support, this article highlights how such partnership-based initiatives can foster collective empowerment, transform professional practices, and accelerate the professionalization pathways of the patient-partners involved.