The following was published by the Herald-Citizen and can be found by clicking here.
The policy council of the Upper Cumberland Human Resource Agency gathered this week to talk about how to potentially improve the services being offered to those trying to recover from addiction.
“The discussion we would like to have is what is missing,” said UCHRA Deputy Director LaNelle Godsey. “What gaps do you see? What are the barriers to the programs that we’re already running?”
UCHRA Executive Director Mark Farley said one issue is the lack of adequate housing, especially for those dealing with substance abuse.
“One of the roles that we do … is housing for specialized individuals,” he said. “We run a lot of housing for seniors, those who are disabled, [and] targeted groups that have a hard time finding housing, like migrant farm workers down in Warren County. We try to fill that gap for individuals that the market is just not taking care of.”
Farley said the agency has worked with officials in DeKalb and Smith counties to provide “transitional homes for people in recovery.”
“We were able to get grant funding to start a women’s house in DeKalb County,” he said. “We can house up to eight individuals there. And then that led to our second house in South Carthage, and it’s a men’s house. We can house eight there as well.”
But Ryan Henry, the supervisor of the UCHRA’s Certified Peer Recovery Specialist program, said housing is just one obstacle that those in recovery need to overcome.
“We are building a blueprint on how to build a recovery ecosystem in our region that can be implemented in other areas of the state and nationally,” he said. “And the next piece of the ecosystem is workforce development. How do we take people from a crisis point on the street, wondering how they’re going to live, to giving them hope, connecting to resources, and getting them ready to join the workforce and be a productive member of society?”
Anne Stamps with Volunteer Behavioral Health said officials must also fight the stigma associated with addiction.
“I work every day to try to fight stigma,” she said. “I think it’s just going to be an ongoing and continuing process to make sure that we are properly educating and informing the people in our community what it looks like. Just continuing to [provide] information so that people understand that it’s not a choice.”
She added that employers can also work to provide a “recovery-friendly workplace,” noting that some people dealing with substance abuse “may have to miss some” work to make appointments related to their recovery.
Farley urged policy council members to emphasize that there’s “no wrong door” when people are seeking treatment services.
“Pass that along,” he said. “If somebody says they’re struggling or they’ve got a child or a brother or sister or husband or wife that’s struggling, don’t think you’re hopeless. There’s no wrong door in the Upper Cumberland. If you get to one of the partners around the table, you’re going to get to every resource that’s available.”
