Stigma and Recovery
Stigmas are negative social attitudes about perceived differences between people and groups. This can be based on a range of characteristics such as appearance, behavior, beliefs, social position, and background. Stigmas can cause debilitating shame, isolation, and exclusion from necessary medical care and other forms of support. Overall, stigmas cause barriers to accessing and maintaining recovery and are difficult to dismantle.
Those of us who live with substance use and mental health challenges encounter stigmas on a daily basis. Those of us who provide mental health and substance use services and support may be stigmatized by colleagues and community members. Great effort is required to identify, address, mitigate, and reverse the impact of stigma. This is also central to developing meaningful recovery plans.
What stigmas do you, the people you work with, and the communities with which you identify face and how do you survive them? When you see someone being stigmatized, how do you and your programs respond? These are some of the many questions we can help you address in your selves, programs, agencies, and communities. We structure our training and coaching to fit your organization’s unique circumstances, including the size of your staff and where you are in your learning.
Our team includes service providers, trainers, researchers, and people who have lived experienced. More than 45 percent of our staff is in recovery from substance use and mental health disorders, homelessness, and trauma. Many more are family members and allies of people in recovery as well as clinicians, practitioners, and leaders with on-the-ground experience designing and delivering services.
We prioritize the lived experience and first-hand knowledge of our staff, clients, and partners in all our work. Our work is person-centered, trauma-informed, and recovery-oriented with a deep commitment to promoting justice and reducing inequities.
We Can Help You
- Assess the knowledge of your staff and organization about stigmas, how and why stigmas are formed, and what can be done to weaken and dismantle them
- Train and support you and your staff on:
- How stigmas manifest and how to identify root causes
- Research on the impact of stigma and efforts to mitigate or dismantle stigmas
- Strategies to resist, reduce, and eliminate stigmas at individual and systemic levels
- Review of organizational policies, procedures, and other documents to identify and address stigmas
- Conduct a peer learning community for your organization focused on de-stigmatizing strategies and policies
- Develop a focused plan to address ongoing and challenging issues of stigma within your organization
- Provide coaching and technical assistance on development, implementation, and assessment of anti-stigma initiatives tailored to your organization and communities
Our Expert

Learn More
- Peer Support in Crisis Services—live, online learning community starting March 24, 2021
- My Recovery Journey: Steven Samra—video (4:35 minutes)
- How C4 helps health and human service organizations live their values and advance their missions
- Behavioral Health and Recovery
- Opioid Overdose Prevention and Support
- Integrating Peer Workers
- Supervising Peer Workers
- Medication-Assisted Treatment/Medication-Assisted Recovery
- Recovery Housing
More about our expertise and our training and technical assistance approaches and offerings.