Recovery Ally Training

Recovery Ally Programs are trainings that are designed to increase a community's recovery capital, decrease stigma and grow intervention skills.

Individual modules include: basic science, allyship behavior, racial justice and recovery, philosophies of care & pathways to recovery, language, and listening skills.

This training is very interactive and is meant to provide a great starting point to supporting people struggling with substance use disorders. Participants may choose to attend the core training only or add optional modules and train the trainer.

Audience: All are welcome.

This training is a very helpful primer as a family member, lay person, friend, employer, health care provider etc. For people with limited exposure to treatment or recovery, it can provide some great starting points. For professionals or people with a great deal of lived experience, it will provide a set of slides, tools and approaches that may be helpful with clients or family members or may provide an easy way to train community members to be part of the solution. Because the training is conversation driven, professionals can often be particularly helpful to other participants during the training

Instructors

Rev. Jan Brown, MS, CPRS, is Founder/ Executive Director of SpiritWorks Foundation Center for the Soul. Jan is certified as a Peer Recovery Support Specialist, a Recovery Coach Professional and international scholar on Addiction Studies. She is a woman with addiction in long term recovery past Chair of the Board of Directors of Faces and Voices of Recovery. Jan was inducted into the Hall of Fame, class of 2022, of the Museum of African American Addictions, Treatment and Recovery.

Tom Bannard, CADC, MBA, CPRS is the Assistant Director for Recovery Support at Virginia Commonwealth University. Tom is passionate about changing the way we treat substance use and firmly believes that we must improve our systems of care by focusing on long-term recovery supports, allowing easier access to treatment and recovery resources, educating and supporting family members, and reducing stigma around substance use.