Creating Communities
that Support Long-term
Recovery from Addiction
Tom Hill
Director of Programs
Faces & Voices of Recovery
May 25, 2011
Individuals in or seeking recovery returning to families
and communities from…
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Active addiction
Treatment
Jails and prison
Military duty
Other
…to recoverysupportive
environments
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Safe and affordable place to live
Steady employment and readiness
Education and vocational learning
Life and recovery skills
Health and wellness
Sober social support networks
Sense of belonging
Other
SAMHSA
Strategic
Initiative #4:
Recovery
Supports
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Health
Home
Purpose
Community
SAMHSA
Strategic
Initiative #4:
HEALTH
Issues
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History of lack of
preventative medicine
Oral health
Reproductive health
HIV, Hepatitis C
Other health conditions
Mental health
Physical fitness
Nutrition
• Degrees of homelessness
SAMHSA
• Housing discrimination against
Strategic
people in recovery with criminal
Initiative #4:
HOME
Issues
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justice history
Safe and affordable recovery
housing (alcohol and other drug
free)
Recovery housing for single
mothers and children
Recovery housing: NIMBY issues
Monitoring and standardizing
recovery housing
SAMHSA
Strategic
Initiative #4:
PURPOSE
Issues
• Employment discrimination against people in recovery with
criminal justice history
• Need for recovery employment networks
• Job readiness and preparation
• Volunteer opportunities
• Recovery-oriented employers and employment programs
• Leadership development: volunteer and career ladders
• Recovery GED programs, high schools and colleges
• Community college programs for people in recovery
• Restrictions on voting rights for people with criminal justice
history
SAMHSA
Strategic
Initiative #4:
COMMUNITY
Issues
• Returning to communities that support individuals
and families in recovery
• Need for community education
• Mapping of indigenous community supports
• Role of recovery community centers
• Role of faith communities
What other
supports are
needed?
• Legal assistance
• Expunging criminal records
• Financial assistance: debt,
taxes, basic budgeting, etc.
• Obtaining driver’s licenses
• Dealing with revoked
professional and business
licenses
• Regaining custody of children
• Life skills
• Other
Working
definitions
of recovery
“Recovery from alcohol and drug problems is a
process of change in which an individual achieves
abstinence and improved health, wellness, and
quality of life.”
CSAT/SAMHSA Recovery Summit (2005)
“Recovery from substance dependence is a
voluntarily maintained lifestyle characterized by
sobriety, personal health, and citizenship.”
Betty Ford Institute Consensus Panel (2007)
Many
(stage
appropriate)
pathways to
recovery
Mutual aid
Faith-based
Medication-assisted
Treatmentenhanced
• “Natural”
• Other
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Strength-based
Assessments
and
Recovery
Capital
• Responsibility for recovery
shared by individual, family,
and community
• Identification and location of
recovery-supportive
resources
• Challenge: Equation of low
recovery capital and high
severity addiction
• Strategies to address
hierarchy of needs
Recovery-oriented • Build on the strengths and resilience of
individuals, families and communities as
Systems of Care
individuals take responsibility for their longterm recovery, health and wellness.
• Make services and resources available that
people can use to meet their needs.
• A variety of supports that work for and with
each person to restore their lives (an ongoing
process).
• Professional treatment is one of the many
services and resources people may need to
get well and get their lives back on track.
How systems
will need to
change
• Public/health systems education about addiction
prevention and the many pathways to recovery
• Greater focus on what happens BEFORE and
AFTER primary treatment
• Transition from professional-directed treatment
plans to person-developed and directed
recovery plans – recovery self-management
• Greater emphasis on the physical, social and
cultural environment where people live their
daily lives
Recovery
Support
Services
(RSS)
• Often formalized from more traditional and
indigenous community supports – but do not
replace
• Non-clinical but support work can take place in
treatment settings
• Before, during, after, and in lieu of treatment
• Provide recovery-oriented social support
• Often provided by faith, community, and
recovery community organizations
• Peer recovery support services are a subset
Four Types
of
Social Support
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Instrumental
Informational
Emotional
Affiliational
Peer
Recovery
Support
Services
(PRSS)
• Peers are RSS providers
• Peer is a person with lived
experience with addiction and
recovery
• Peers often bring value added
• Includes family members, in some
cases
• Peers do NOT diagnose, counsel,
or give advice
• Different than counselor
• Different than sponsor
Examples of
Peer Services
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Peer recovery coaching
Peer-facilitated groups
Resource connectors
Peer-operated recovery community centers
• Personal guide and mentor for individuals
Peer
seeking to achieve or sustain long-term
Recovery Coach
recovery from addiction, regardless of
pathway to recovery
• Connector to instrumental recoverysupportive resources, including housing,
employment, and other professional and
nonprofessional services
• Liaison to formal and informal community
supports, resources, and recoverysupporting activities
Recovery
Planning
and
Recovery Plans
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Recovery Capital Assessment
Mutually-agreed upon recovery goals
Identified areas of support and challenge
Achievement strategies and milestones
Tiered and built-upon goals
Re-visitation and modification
Recovery
Community
Centers
• A physical location where recovery
community organizations organize
their ability to care and to advocate
• Community recovery resource with
workshops, trainings, meetings, and
sober social events
• A place where the recovery
community volunteers and gives
back
Recoveryoriented
Communities
Mobilizing all of the resources in our communities to:
• Change discriminatory public policies in the areas
of health care, jobs and housing to eliminate
barriers
• Develop networks and systems that work together
to treat addiction as a public health, not criminal
justice, crisis and accord dignity to people with
addiction and their families
• Help more people find and sustain their recovery
for the long-term
Recoveryoriented
Communities
Communities of recovery
- Recovery community organizations
- Mutual aid/support groups
- Recovery homes
- Recovery schools
- Recovery media and entertainment
- Organizations of recovering professionals
- Recovery-friendly employers
and many others…
We need more than effective
treatment and recovery
support services.
We need a society where
individuals, families and
communities affected by
alcohol and other drugs have
universal access to the
support needed to achieve
recovery, health, wellness
and civic engagement.
Message of Hope
-William White
Author and Recovery Advocate
“Many of us have carried a message
of hope on a one-to-one basis; this
new recovery movement calls upon
us to carry that message of hope to
whole communities and the whole
culture. It is time we stepped forward
to shape this history with our stories,
our time and our talents.”
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facesandvoicesofrecovery.org
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