"I was able to shift my conception of recovery and viable pathways to include and celebrate harm reduction."

Participant, Kalamazoo, MI 

Authors: Jim Wuelfing & Dean LeMire​

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Owners: The LeMire Group LLC & Jim Wuelfing

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Training Hours: 18

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CEU approved in: NC, TN, WV, NH, NY, TX, MD, PA, NV, MN

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Info & Pricing Packet: download here

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Domains: Support 3.5; Ethics 4.5; Advocacy 5.5; Mentoring 4.5

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Purchase a Manual  (if registered for a class)

Contact:  training@rchrp.com

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Training of Trainers, Austin, TX

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About This Training

Tens of thousands of people are trained as peer recovery coaches; many now work in a rapidly growing and changing Peer Recovery Support Services field across a wide variety of service settings. Some of the key tenets in peer recovery coaching are: ‘Meet people where they are at’; ‘You are in recovery when you say you are’; and ‘There are many pathways to recovery’. Still, harm reduction as a pathway to and of recovery from addiction remains widely misunderstood. Abstinence-based pathways have for decades dominated the helping services of addiction recovery. Recovery coaches may struggle with supporting a harm reduction pathway for many reasons, including: Lack of understanding about harm reduction; personal, institutional, and cultural bias; and/or lack of exposure to people achieving recovery outcomes through harm-reduction-based means.

Recovery Coaching a Harm Reduction Pathway© comes just in time for a new phase in recovery coaching development alongside a swelling harm reduction movement across North America. A handful of leaders in both the peer recovery supports and harm reduction movements collaborated to bring this curriculum to its current form. RCHRP utilizes adult learning theory concepts and modalities to address knowledge, attitudes, practices, access to resources, and coaching skills. As this training explores sensitive topics, its design and delivery are highly trauma-informed. Each class becomes a safe place for self-examination and practice from the outset.

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Participants will be able to...

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• Define harm reduction as a practice and as a social movement

• Examine one’s beliefs and values around a harm reduction pathway of recovery

• Compare and contrast principles of harm reduction and recovery coaching

• Define and locate opportunities for improving a Recovery-Oriented System of Care that serves People Who Use Drugs

• Discuss advocacy and practices around social justice issues as part of harm reduction

• Practice newly acquired knowledge and skills supporting a harm reduction pathway of recovery

• Develop a personal action plan for further development of harm reduction recovery coaching skills

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PREREQUISITES

Completion of a recognized 30-46-hour recovery coaching fundamentals training, such as CCAR Recovery Coach Academy, is strongly suggested.

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WHO BENEFITS FROM THIS TRAINING?

Active or prospective peer specialists; Recovery Community Organization personnel; recovery housing service providers; substance use disorder treatment providers; medical and psychiatric services providers; people with lived experience of chaotic substance use, and family members in recovery.

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ABOUT THE CORE TRAINERS

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Jim Wuelfing is owner and principle associate of the New England Center, dedicated to exceptional training, facilitation and consulting services for nearly 40 years. In the recovery supports arena he has been a major contributor in the design and delivery of several curricula including the CCAR Recovery Coach Academy and CCAR Ethical Considerations for Recovery Coaches, as well as SOS Developing Excellence in Recovery Coaching and Recovery Coaching a Harm Reduction Pathway. He has aided in the formation of several statewide recovery community organizations and has served on the board of the Massachusetts Organization of Addiction Recovery. Jim also has a decades long experience working on social justice issues focusing on racial inequities and understanding the dynamics of power and privilege. He co-wrote with Arthur Woodard, Jr. the nationally well-received training Racism of the Well-Intended.

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Dean LeMire is owner and principal associate of The LeMire Group LLC, a recovery services consulting and training agency based in Dover, NH. In his various roles across the substance use disorder continuum of care, Dean has facilitated expansion of improved, person-centered, and community-based service delivery. In New Hampshire Dean was instrumental in forming a statewide network of Recovery Community Organizations, as well as a statewide network of harm reduction service programs as a founding board member of the New Hampshire Harm Reduction Coalition and as co-founder of Hand Up Health Services, a county-wide syringe services program. While living in Texas recently Dean served as President of RecoveryATX, a Recovery Community Organization, as co-founder of the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, and D.O. of THRA's direct services program Austin Overdose Prevention Services (Austin-OPS). He now manages remote teams of peer recovery specialists who forge the digital frontier of PRSS (and loves it!). Dean has trained peer recovery specialists since 2016 and co-developed Recovery Coaching a Harm Reduction Pathway© with Jim Wuelfing in 2019.

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CURRICULUM CONTENT COLLABORATORS

William White, Tom Hill, Jenna Neasbitt, Kevin Irwin, Hannah Rose, Joseph Hogan-Sanchez, Devin Reaves, Kevin McLaughlin, Christie Mokry, Michael Galipeau, Michelle Reilly

at which we remembered to take pictures