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Recovery Coalition settling into new home
Formed nine years ago through a collaborative spirit among various recovery organizations, the Putnam County Recovery Coalition finally has a home.
PCRC recently opened its office at 620 Tennessee St., Suite 4, and the staff of two has been busy since, filling their office hours — 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday through Thursday — since then.
That includes Executive Director Sheila Holloway and Assistant Executive Director and Peer Recovery Coach Kimberly Holt.
“It works out pretty well,” Holloway said. “She (Holt) is recovering, and I’m a parent, so I can help the people with a loved one struggling with addiction.”
That rings true to something PCRC Board President Veronica Pejril said in her comments during the grand opening.
“Most of us are in the work because we have a story to share, whether we are in recovery ourselves or whether we have recovered ones in our families,” Pejril said. “I lost a sister myself, six years ago to overdose. I have committed myself to being engaged with this work as a consequence of that.”
The grand opening itself was well received, with local citizens and leaders taking part, as well as Doug Huntsinger — Indiana executive director for drug prevention, treatment and enforcement and chairman of the Indiana Commission to Combat Substance Use Disorder.
It wasn’t just happenstance that Huntsinger was in attendance, though. Now having an official location, the office became a regional recovery hub, serving a four-county area that also includes Owen, Morgan and Hendricks counties.
“After our open house, we had some big stakeholders coming and government officials, and now I’m getting calls from all these people needing services,” Holloway said.
Huntsinger spoke of the importance of this sort of resource being available in a community.
“Recovery hubs are so important,” he said. “Not only do they help people find treatment, but when people come back to the community, it’s a place where we can engage them, have those psychosocial supports to help maintain recovery. Without our hubs, we would end up in a treatment cycle where we’re continually running people through the treatment program and never helping them sustain and maintain the recovery.”
That’s where Holloway and Holt — soon to be joined by recovery coach Nick Smith — find themselves, fielding calls from people looking for service and finding ways to help.
They also want the office to be a multi-purpose facility, used for things like Narcan training and hosting meetings such as Parents of Addicted Loved Ones and recovery programs.
“We’re wanting to have a bunch of different training and meetings here to promote awareness,” Holloway said.
All of it falls in line with the mission statement Holloway repeated at the grand opening.
“We are committed to reducing the use of harmful substances through community, education and awareness; collaborative partnerships; and access to various forms of treatments so that all affected might experience restoration of life and relationships,” She said. “Our vision is to collaborate in creating a Putnam County community where those who suffer from substance use disorders are free of stigma, treated with love and understanding and have access to harm reduction to a holistic recovery.”
In doing so, they’ve partnered with organizations such as PAL and Overdose Lifeline, as well as becoming part of the Indiana Recovery Network.
“We signed up with Indiana Recovery Network in January of last year, and that’s where our peer coaches came in,” Holloway said. “They are a blessing to us. I don’t think we could’ve gotten this far without them.”
Still, there’s room to grow. With all the requests Holt has been getting, PCRC is also looking for new peer recovery coaches. Anyone interested in completing this training is encouraged to reach out to PCRC. Financial stipends are available for the training.
“We’re going to have to get more peer coaches and try to expand,” Holloway added.
As important as it’s been to become a regional recovery hub, Holloway and Holt explained that the next step is to become a recovery community organization, which will make PCRC eligible for further grant funding as a way to expand its services.
Still, having a physical location and becoming a recovery hub is a huge step for the local organization, becoming part of something that Huntsinger considers the biggest accomplishment of his years working in Gov. Eric Holcomb’s cabinet.
“Of all the initiatives that we have put forward over the last seven years, I think our recovery hubs are the ones I am most proud of,” Huntsinger said. “It represents the collaboration, the community coming together. The easy work is building the infrastructure around this. The hard work is that collaborative spirit. People ask, ‘What makes a community successful in combating the drug epidemic?’ It’s not having treatment centers or having great programs — it’s having a community that comes together, that collaborates, that’s willing to tackle their problems. Then we can bring you all the shiny things. But when you start working together, that’s when you start finding success.”
It seems Putnam County already had that. Now PCRC is running with it.
Anyone looking for recovery services can feel free to reach out to the Putnam County Recovery Coalition at 765-719-0359 or stop by the office at 620 Tennessee St., Suite 4.