As its name indicates, Recovery in Community Inc., a Southwest Baltimore substance-abuse prevention and treatment agency, sees recovery and domestic stability as interdependent in the reclamation process.
“Recovery in Community is a state-certified, outpatient treatment program with a comprehensive, long-term commitment to substance-abuse intervention, prevention and treatment,” said Lena M. Franklin, the nonprofit?s executive director. “It?s an out-of-the-box kind of thing. Our focus is not on episodic treatment but on retaining people for the longer haul.”
The antithesis of the “28-day detoxification model,” Recovery in Community blends a drug-free regimen, classroom orientation and instruction, group discussion, individual counseling, case management and supportive, transitional housing. The program serves about 300 people a year.
About 40 of the nonprofit?s 103 clients have taken free housing, Franklin said, which is provided by partnering housing nonprofits, such as the Foundation of Hope.
“We?re able to place people in housing for up to three months to help them get their foundation in the recovery process,” she said.
The 11-employee, $580,000 a year nonprofit, started in 1998 as a city health department program with a $2 million grant from the Abell Foundation, even offers house calls and acupuncture ? and a gala graduation ceremony each August for graduates who remain drug- and alcohol-free.
“It?s like when you first come into these programs, you really don?t want to be there,” said William Reed, a former substance-abuser who graduated from Recovery in Community in 2005. “But as I kept coming, I realized that there are things that I needed to change in my life ? and the counselors there helped me understand what I needed to do.”
Now steadily employed, Reed is planning to purchase the Southwest Baltimore house he currently rents.
“It?s an outstanding program,” said Paul Booth, a volunteer with Operation Reach Out Southwest, a Baltimore economic development nonprofit. “I?ve seen some of the folks who have come out of the program and into our jobs program, and go on to become productive citizens.”
It?s an outcome that may have something to do with Franklin?s philosophy.
“We really believe that addiction should be treated as any other chronic illness,” Franklin said. “We don?t punish and denigrate people for not following their treatment plan. We bring them in and talk about what we can do.”
The formal program lasts for one year but offers recovery support activities afterward, Franklin said.
