Substance Use & Mental Health Recovery Supports

Many people experience mental health and substance use challenges, and much is known about how to support recovery. People can and do recover—and recovery is possible for everyone.

Along with prevention and treatment, equitable recovery-oriented services and supports are integral to an effective response. Recovery-oriented approaches offer coordinated services and supports that are person-centered and build on the strengths, cultures, and resources of individuals, families, and communities. We center racial equity as a strategy to address disparities and ensure that people in recovery who are most severely marginalized by racism can access recovery support services in the amount, duration, locality, and by the provider of their choice.

Female participants listen to a behavioral health training.

Our staff has led federal, state, regional, and local projects to develop and implement equitable recovery-oriented services and supports and has provided training, technical assistance, and consultation to support recovery. We have been centrally involved in several recovery-focused Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) initiatives.

Our team includes service providers, peers, trainers, researchers, and people who have experienced mental illness, substance use, trauma, homelessness, and incarceration. We partner with treatment and prevention experts to ensure coordinated responses that integrate recovery. Our work is grounded in our experience providing and participating in mental health and addiction services. People with lived experience are at the forefront of our work to ensure real-world expertise is embedded in all we do.

We Can Help You

Develop and implement equitable recovery-oriented systems and supports
Facilitate local and national conversations with stakeholders to promote dialogue, build consensus, and advance understanding of recovery
Lead conversations, listening sessions, and structured interviews about racism with staff, board members, service providers, community leaders and those you serve
Review, update, and operationalize policies and procedures to ensure equity
Develop action steps to shift organizational culture and implement strategies for making equitable change
Use shared decision making to activate people in their own care
Develop strategies to hire, integrate, supervise, and retain peer workers
Build capacity of peer workers via professional development and career ladders
Integrate medication-assisted treatment/medication-assisted recovery with other services and supports
Promote recovery housing and support residences and system stakeholders to build capacity
Develop, implement, and assess a plan to address stigma
Integrate behavioral health and primary care
Identify, develop, enhance, and evaluate equitable criminal justice reform initiatives including re-entry and recovery supports and services
Promote recovery-ready workplaces by training employers about the benefits of hiring people in recovery and best practices in outreach and hiring, human resource policies and practices, and supervision and management techniques to support employees in recovery
Support people in recovery who are ready to re-enter the workforce by providing training in key employment skills and access to trained peer job coaches
Strengthen the resiliency of children, youth, and their families
Support parents in recovery
Plan and implement youth recovery supports