Last week marked the beginning of National Recovery Month, a time when we honor those of us – individuals, families and communities – who are living in recovery, those of us who are seeking recovery and professional helpers who are dedicated to helping others find recovery. This marks the beginning of a month-long celebration of “us”.
The Georgia Council on Substance Abuse (GCSA), through a contract with DBHDD, administers a “Recovery Month Mini-Grant” program. What you may not know is the history of how we came to do this project. Let me tell the story…
In 2009, I was invited to go to Washington, D.C. to speak at the National Press Club and to visit the White House as part of the release of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and to go to NYC to participate in a Recovery Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with several hundred of our peers in recovery. It was an amazing event and I met an incredible group of recovery advocates from across the country, many of whom I’m still connected to. I was a fairly new executive director at GCSA and was like a sponge soaking in all that was happening in the burgeoning “recovery movement”.
Fast forward to Georgia, 2012. We had just completed our first year of the Certified Addiction Recovery Empowerment Specialist (CARES) training – we trained a total of 52 individuals in three separate academies in this new certification program. We were excited, nervous and thinking of ways to work with and support these newly-minted leaders in their local communities. CARES 1, 2 and 3 were special (our favorite at the time!) and we were recruiting for CARES 4, 5 and 6.
There was little recognition of September as Recovery Month in Georgia at that time, with only a couple of events and very little organization. I took a look at how my peers across the country were celebrating and saw that many had one big event such as a recovery walk, a concert and other one-time events. These events were great, but we already have Addiction Recovery Awareness Day at the state capitol every January and I thought it arrogant of me to ask that people come to Atlanta in September as well. I asked myself, “what could I do to help create sustainable change in Georgia so that everyone knows that recovery is real?”
One of the things I learned from working in my previous capacities in Georgia is that the citizens of this state value local control and local input. Georgia is the largest state (geographically) east of the Mississippi and we have a diverse population of over 10 million. When I first came to Georgia in 1998, I worked in Governor Zell Miller’s Children and Youth Coordinating Council (CYCC) and administered a federal grants program from the National Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). This was a $5 million grant to our state and CYCC allocated that funding to local communities through a “mini-grants” program. My job was to administer that mini-grant program which allowed me to develop a process where we accepted applications for funding, review the applications and make decisions on who best at the local level would receive the funding to help young people stay out of the criminal justice system.
Once the funding decisions were made, I traveled the State and met the people who were administering the programs and was able to see them in action. Now remember, I was brand new to Georgia, having moved there after living in Florida for 15 years. Luckily, my boss at the time was a man by the name of Pete Colbenson. Pete had a career in juvenile justice but his formal education is a PhD in history. I cannot overstate the value of having a history professor as a mentor, especially in Georgia. Before I went out on my trips to visit local programs, Dr. Pete would sit in my office and tell me about the county, city or community I was about to enter.
Seeing the programs in action and meeting the young people and staff who benefitted from them taught me valuable lessons that I carry with me today. Local communities making decisions about how to address issues they deem important is the way to sustainability and growth. My role was to support and nurture, to bring ideas if they asked, and to honor their insights and ideas as those who have to live with their decisions. I learned how not to be the “expert” coming in to “save” a community. I learned how to be a resource, a connector, an ally. The communities selected for this program were grateful for the financial support and happy to have the autonomy to do what they knew was best for their communities.
Back to 2012, I was sitting at a table at DBHDD on Peachtree St. talking to a group of behavioral health executives about CARES and about the newly-emerging Georgia Recovery Initiative (GRI). Somehow, National Recovery Month came up and I was asked how we were going to support it this year. I thought back to my old job at CYCC and introduced the idea of a mini-grant program. Someone asked, “how much would that cost?” I did some quick math in my head and said, “we could ask for applications from local communities for up to $2,000 and if we had $40,000, we could have 20 events across the State.” I told them I could have a proposal to them by the next day.
I went back to the tiny office in the United Way Building and spoke with Owen Dougherty and Joyce Jordan, pretty much our entire complement of staff at the time, and we sketched out our proposal. Our work at GRI told us we needed to be inclusive of individuals in recovery from a substance use disorder, mental illness or both. Because we wanted to grow local recovery leadership, we made it a requirement in the application that CARES or CPSs had to be involved in a meaningful way in the event, not just an afterthought.
We decided that we would give more weight to whether a community had other planning partners and could leverage the mini-grant funding as a way to garner more financial support. In other words, “if I come to the table with guaranteed funding, how much can you come up with?” Bringing resources to local tables signals meaningful commitment. Our initial application gave guidance in terms of using recovery-focused language and we linked to national recovery month resources so that individuals who were going to apply knew they were part of something bigger.
And it worked. That first year, we had 22 events across the State in celebration of National Recovery Month. Some of the events were small, attracting 30-40 people and those were some of my favorites. People were willing to be out and proud about their recovery and to celebrate each other’s successes. GCSA was a small staff but we committed to attending each event to show solidarity. I went to at least half of them the first couple of years the Recovery Month mini-grant program was in place. Joyce and Owen did the same and we have the t-shirts to prove it! In October, our motto became “Recovery Month almost killed us!” But we were energized, grateful and DBHDD was extremely happy with the results. We had each awardee fill out a survey and we sent those to the funders along with pictures of each event. Recovery Month came to Georgia at last!
Every year since then, this grassroots project has received funding. I submit that it is the best money out there in that it has become “seed” funding for much larger and more creative events. Thousands of people at the local level take part in a variety of activities. Georgia could take that funding and put it toward one, big event in a centralized location but that would only show that we can get people to show up for something. The local events require planning, engaging, implementing and enjoying an entire community’s efforts. They reflect the culture of the community. And that is where change takes place. Some events continue now without funding from the State and how often does that happen? In a State that values local control, the Recovery Month Mini-Grant program brings out the best in our communities to sustain positive, transformational change.
If you are fortunate enough to go any of the events you this Recovery Month 2019, I want you to know that they did not just pop up out of nowhere. The funding is important and we are ever grateful for DBHDD trusting us to do the work. The people leading these events took a risk on us several years ago and continue to partner with us to bring recovery to their community in a way that makes sense to them. Know that several GCSA staff have supported these efforts and have helped them grow. Listen to what is being said at these events. Let the words and actions inspire you the way they inspired us at the beginning of this movement. And please never doubt that one idea can spark sustainable, positive change.
Neil Campbell, Executive Director
