September is Recovery Month! In this newsletter, you will hear from our staff who are in recovery. Sean shares an article he wrote covering what Live Tampa Bay has been up to so far this month and what one can do to promote health and recovery in one’s own life. Darryl focuses on our partnership with the area recovery community organizations to help get more recovery peers trained and into the workforce in As We Grow. And, of course, we share stories of recovery and opportunities to engage during this eventful month.
Last year, I shared my hopes for our region in its efforts to foster a recovery-oriented system of care:
1. Actual brick-and-mortar hubs or recovery community centers in our most vulnerable communities, where people can go to receive a wide array of recovery, harm reduction, and case management services.
2. Shared measurement that is not a simple measure of heads-on-beds or seats-in-seats. We don’t get bed tax from behavioral health services!
3. More robust recovery services—including housing and transportation—throughout the region, along with a more flexible financing model that supports individuals and their needs as they strive to get a firm footing in recovery.
4. Attorneys, artists, and activists to hold bad actors accountable and to fuel a true recovery movement. Think of the AIDS Movement in the 1980s.
5. A thoughtful approach to disseminating opioid settlement dollars that understands that this money is “blood money,” not programmatic dollars.
Over the past 365 days, Live Tampa Bay has worked to make this wish list a reality.
- Live Tampa Bay staff, stakeholders, and leaders show up at county opioid abatement meetings and have hosted a myriad of events to spark interest and enthusiasm around recovery. While far from a movement, with each event people are becoming more comfortable with living their recovery out loud!
- Live Tampa Bay has shared with counties the ways in which recovery hubs are organized, funded, and success measured in other Florida communities that are setting up similar community-based centers of care.
- The Hub manager and Opioid Drug Czar from Palm Beach County walked our stakeholders through their own experience setting up The Hub system, and they shared measurement tools they found most reliable and helpful for measuring how successful providers in our system are in helping individuals strengthen their recovery.
- Live Tampa Bay connected 179 individuals to respite recovery housing that performs intakes 24×7 and/or transportation to behavioral health services over the past 9 months. But we need funding dedicated to respite recovery housing and transportation for behavioral health and justice system appointments. Currently, this is not funded by CFBHN because of restrictions from DCF. As we set our advocacy priorities for this legislative season, I know this is top-of-mind for our leaders.
We still have a way to go before we put a check mark next to any of these priorities for strengthening recovery in our communities. Indeed, in some instances our progress has not been as fast, nor efforts as clear as a community as many have hoped, and this has left some quite frustrated. Yet, I am proud of our partners, our team, and our leaders for beginning to take steps together and for putting pressure towards forward progress. Next year, I know our collective efforts will lead to even fewer people dying and far more people making it into recovery, so they can celebrate this month with others trudging the road of happy destiny.
Yours in recovery,
Jennifer Webb