RECOVERY Hope After Addiction: Recovery Coach Training Grads Honored in Brockton Like many people in recovery, Jennifer Marston (pictured lower right) had begun her addiction by taking prescription pills for an injury. “I broke my neck in a car accident when I was 14 years old,” she said. After undergoing numerous surgeries and developing rheumatoid arthritis, her opiate addiction spiraled out of control. “I was okay using for the rest of my life to deal with the pain,” she recalled. At one point she and her son were homeless and living in a subsidized hotel. But then she turned her life around and wants to help others do the same. Marston, a native of Whitman, is one of six graduates of the Gándara Center’s Training to Work program, a workforce development grant for recovery coaching as an occupation at the agency’s Stairway to Recovery Peer Recovery Support Center in Brockton. The graduates’ achievements were acknowledged in a graduation celebration on June 19. “I’m grateful to Gándara and I’m proud of myself and how far I’ve come,” said Marston. “There was a time when I just didn’t have any hope to be anyone more than what I was. Now I love what I’m doing.” This was the program’s first graduating class and would not have been possible without such community partners as Massasoit Community College, where students take courses in its Human Services program, as well as the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center (BNHC) and the city’s High Point Treatment Centers, where graduates are now employed as recovery coaches. A new group of 15 students, part of the program’s second cohort, attended the graduation, as well as family, friends, and representatives from BNHC, High Point, and Massasoit Community College. The 8-to-12-month program provides skills-based training to earn a Recovery Coach certificate and credentials and a 5-to-7month internship. There are also job placement services and followup support for the graduates. The Training to Work program is funded by a state grant and administered by the Commonwealth Corporation. Plymouth Recovery Center Opens The Plymouth Recovery Center opened its doors on July 5, 2017 with 2,000 feet of space that includes a meeting room, a community room, a reading or counseling room, and staff offices. The driving force behind the center was Robert Hollis and the Hollis family, Plymouth residents who rallied the community to raise money for the program in memory of their beloved son and brother, Rob, who died of an overdose in 2016 after a period of recovery. Gándara’s Recovery Support Centers welcome all people in recovery from substance use and those affected by substance use. Services are free and provide peer-to-peer supports including peer facilitated support; relapse prevention support groups, social events, and advocacy and recovery coaching. All paths to recovery are accepted. The Plymouth Recovery Center hosts such meetings as Al-Anon, Morning Motivational group, To the Moon and Back (for caregivers on children born with substance exposure), a support group for siblings of those lost to—or suffering from—substance use disorder, Yoga 12-Step Recovery, relapse prevention group, and Refuge Recovery, a Buddhist-oriented path to freedom from addiction. This recovery center is a program of Gándara Mental Health Center Inc. in collaboration with Plymouth Recovery Center, Inc.
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