by LaMara HunterKelly | May 9, 2019 | In The News
By JOSHUA SOLOMON
Staff Writer
Published: 5/9/2019
GREENFIELD —
…Advocates, like Amie Hyson, who is a recovery coach who works with The RECOVER Project in Greenfield, asked the commission to help coaches avoid burnout. This in part is to support a pay that is a livable wage and in part to provide additional services that support the coaches…
Linda Sarage, the former longtime director of The RECOVER Project, said it’s vital to increase the available training and multilingual access to them while decreasing the barriers of cost. She reminded the commission that Pittsfield and Greenfield are not necessarily close.
“We’re weeding out people from particular backgrounds and particular demographics who would be our most valuable assets,” Sarage said. “How do we make it more accessible?”
PICTURED: Sarah AhernSarah Ahern, an active member and advocate of the recovery community in town, emphasized the sheer importance of a recovery coach.
“The peer-to-peer model is so important because as a person in recovery, I’ve had way too much clinical interface,” Ahern said. “When you’re sitting across from someone who has walked your path, the trust is a little different. The trust is there right away.”
(Read Full Article HERE)
by LaMara HunterKelly | Apr 10, 2019 | In The News
Members of Voices From Inside, including Amie Hyson, at left, who facilitates the groups at the RECOVER Project and the Franklin County jail, prepare for a public reading at the All Souls Church in Greenfield. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOBy MAX MARCUS
Staff Writer
Published: 4/10/2019 5:24:12 PM
Kayla Barcomb never wrote poetry before Voices From Inside started a writing workshop for women in the Franklin County jail last May.
So at her first writing session, even though everyone was encouraging, she only read her work aloud at the end of the session, on the last call for reading.
“I was worried about, ‘What will people think? What are they going to say? I don’t know what I’m doing,’” Barcomb said. “But after that I would go back and spend a lot more time in my cell, and I would write and write and write. Now I’ve got two folders of stuff in my backpack, and I’ve got four notebooks at home. … All of that started from Voices From Inside.”
When Barcomb was released from prison in December, she immediately started going to Voices From Inside’s group at the RECOVER Project in Greenfield.
(Continue reading…)
by LaMara HunterKelly | Jan 25, 2019 | In The News
By JOSHUA SOLOMON
Staff Writer
Friday, January 11, 2019
GREENFIELD — Tina Rockwood’s family often asks her when she’s getting off her medication. Sometimes they ask her if she will ever get off of it.
It’s a question she doesn’t always know how to answer, and it’s certainly one that creates some self-doubt about a form of substance use treatment that while is moving into the mainstream in America, still carries its social baggage.
“It really affects my feelings of myself,” Rockwood (Member and Peer Leader at The RECOVER Project) told a full house of a hundred or so health providers, advocates and community members gathered at Greenfield Community College Friday morning. (Continue reading…)
by LaMara HunterKelly | Dec 7, 2018 | In The News
Larry Thomas while working at The RECOVER Project on Wednesday afternoon on Federal Street in Greenfield, Nov. 07, 2018.By JOSHUA SOLOMON
Staff Writer
Friday, December 07, 2018
GREENFIELD — People tend to know Larry Thomas as patient, as positive, as the guy who always will stop, say ‘Hi’ and ask how you’re doing.
At a hearing to see if he could secure an apartment, Thomas found himself furious.
“I had to go through this hearing,” Thomas said. “It was difficult. I had two people advocating for me from ServiceNet. My housing coordinator and my therapist. They both know me.”
Thomas had been staying at shelters and surfing friends’ couches, but things had started to turn the corner. He had housing at a halfway house that partners renters with social workers. He had begun to move from a member of The RECOVER Project to a trained recovery coach — a burgeoning profession in the recovery community — and even an employee of The RECOVER Project, where he has grown into a leader in that community.
At the time, he was just on the cusp of having a steady job, but without steady housing. Thomas wanted his own place, but he needed to go before this hearing with letters of recommendation. “It was almost like going to court,” Thomas said. “It was uncomfortable. I kind of got mad about it. The lady kept looking at my criminal record. I said, ‘Ma’am, can you look at the letters?’ This isn’t the 80s. It’s 2017.”
Thomas, like others in the community, especially those in recovery, struggles with finding housing when having a criminal record, albeit sometimes from decades ago. Oftentimes, that criminal record is related to a history with drugs. The criminal record is not necessarily related to violent crimes.
“I’m being judged and looked at again,” Thomas said. “All this stuff I already did time for. We have to do it all over again.”
Change coming?
(Continue Reading…)
by LaMara HunterKelly | Dec 3, 2018 | In The News
Ralph Provost stands for a portrait outside of The RECOVER Project on Friday in Greenfield, Nov. 16, 2018.By JOSHUA SOLOMON
Staff Writer
Monday, December 03, 2018
GREENFIELD — Crawling into the space under the wooden steps of a decrepit Bank Row building, Ralph Provost was shivering. It was snowing and the temperatures were dropping as the sun set.
Before the short, 61-year-old man could squeeze into the dark den, he had to strip away the several coats he wore. Otherwise he couldn’t fit through the opening. Head on swivel, Provost watched as traffic skidded up and down the hill that serves as a main artery into the center of town.
It might have been the dead of winter, but he didn’t want to attract any attention. He waited for a quiet moment to stuff himself unnoticed into that small space he called home for 10 months. When renovations began on what’s now the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office building, Provost finally had to find a new home.
(Continue reading…)
