Young People in Recovery is a national advocacy organization, which aims to influence public policy, making it easier for our youth to find and maintain their recovery from addiction. YPR establishes city and state chapters, which act as vessels, carrying out our organizations vision and mission. Our chapters wear two hats: Advocacy & Action. The first hat is Advocacy. Since every community is different, chapters identify and support key policy measures that are already in place in their community, in addition to identifying needs and providing support to solutions. That support may come through attending open policy dialogues, testifying in front of their elected officials, or hosting town hall meetings where they can educate their communities on the importance of supporting these policy measures which often deal with improving recovery related resources. Chapter members often also speak publicly about their own recovery, in an attempt to break the stigma of being an addict. This not only educates their communities on what recovery is and why it’s important, but also creates a beacon of hope for those individuals who still struggle with addiction. Our chapters and their members attend conferences, meetings, and other events where they can represent YPR on a local and national stage, while pushing three of YPR’s core beliefs … advocate, educate, collaborate. This is how YPR chapters advocate for their local communities. The second hat is Action. YPR chapters are literally providing the resources and services it is advocating for better access to. Despite our advocacy, the recovery community, and the population of people that make up the recovery community, are still the most underfunded and underrepresented body of people in this country. This is mainly because addiction is the most underfunded public health issue in this country. This is largely due to the stigma and discrimination that our YPR’s members face every single day. This is one of the main reasons why we advocate. Accordingly, YPR chapters will fill this void now by providing direct services through workshops. These workshops are designed to help young people in or seeking recovery secure employment, seek stable housing, and explore continuing education. The workshops are no cost to the participants. The participants will have the opportunity to essentially be empowered by YPR chapter hosting the workshops. Workshops will cover basic skills like “how to write a cover letter and resume”, or “what interviewing skills should you bring to an interview”, and “how do I locate resources for higher education, and what is the application process like”. These skills are essential for youth who are in recovery because they often were never taught, and never developed the awareness of how to obtain these skills, because they were addicted for most of their young adult lives. This all ties back into a secure base. If a young person in recovery likes their job, has safe and secure housing, and were able to develop a passion in life because of what they studied in school, they YPR, essentially, just bridged a gap towards establishing a secure base for these individuals in early recovery. YPR chapters advocate for better access to employment, housing, education, and other recovery related resources. These four areas of focus were strategically chosen. YPR used research by the World Health Organization, who regularly researches the recovery community. YPR evaluated their outcomes and developed a sustainable strategy to empower the recovery community. Their research identified seven pillars that are essential for an individual to establish a secure base in recovery, ultimately making it easier for them to sustain long-term recovery. YPR chose three especially pertinent pillars to begin with, suitable employment, safe & affordable housing, and higher education. YPR is actively providing better access to each of these pillars, whilst advocating for change to happen in the public policy arena. Those three are YPR’s initial focus on these first three pillars has been widely endorsed by our communities as vital to achieve and sustain our member’s long-term recovery. YPR has learned that many of our members become stuck before coming into our chapters. They are young, and in most cases have used for most of their young adult lives. They never had the ability to develop skills sets that pertain to securing suitable employment, acquiring safe and affordable housing, and exploring continuing education. These often simple, yet essential skill sets are over looked when it comes to recovery related resources, and without a proper secure base in recovery, the odds of long-term recovery being sustained by young people will continually be marginally possible. It is also YPR’s belief for an individual to sustain their long-term recovery; they need to find meaning and purpose in their life. Mental health currently has an employment agency, housing authority, and many educational services for those who qualify. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, (SAMHSA) wants to put the substance use disorder population on the same level as mental health, yet we are hard pressed to qualify for their services. Since these skill sets are often overlooked and not provided on a national platform for the recovery community, YPR chapters will step up to fill the void by providing these services through their workshops. Young People in Recovery’s Advocacy & Action model is how we create Recovery Ready Communities, which will ultimately give way to a Recovery Ready America.
