Kentucky is creating a series of Recovery Community Centers that go beyond traditional recovery services to support people as they rebuild their lives.
Katie Marks is the director of theKORE program or the Kentucky Opioid Response Effort. She spoke a recent conference in Lexington. She said the centers expand recovery support in a new direction.
“Recovery community centers are physical locations that persons in recovery can access to build their recovery, capital, be it being with peer to peer support, getting mutual aid groups, help with employment, financial and housing, all those resources that are going to help support their long-term recovery,” she said.
The six pilot programs will be created with the help of local organizations already doing similar work. Marks says the staff at the centers will ultimately be specially trained members of the local community.
The centers will offer help with life-skills to sustain long-term recovery.
“Important parts of the opioid response are overdose deaths and increasing access to treatment. But what's critical to a sustained impact on our community is supporting long term recovery. And so recovery community centers support that sustained effort, it's really about investing in people's lives, and helping them to invest in themselves,” she said.
