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Addiction Messenger Feature Article October 2024

In Missouri, a Recovery Friendly School is also a Recovery Friendly Workplace, and a potential model for others to follow in person-centered recovery

By Ann McCauley, director, Missouri Recovery Friendly Workplaces

When a Recovery Friendly School also becomes a Recovery Friendly Workplace, you create an environment that centers the living experience of individuals in recovery, both in and outside the classroom.

On October 24, 2023, the Excel Adult High School in Columbia became the first school in Missouri to earn the Recovery Friendly Workplace (RFW) designation. The Excel Center is an accredited tuition-free high school that gives adults 21 and older the opportunity to earn an actual high school diploma. While earning their diploma, students earn college credits and a variety of industry-recognized certifications to increase their earning potential and employability skills.

Left to right: Reverend James Gray, Ann McCauley (MU Extension), Lawanna Rothman (Excel Center student), Abby Courtney (Career and College Coordinator and teacher at Excel Center), Michelle McDowell (MU Extension), Sawiyyah Chanay (MU Extension)Excel Center Celebration flier– 5 year and RFW Designation
Left to right: Reverend James Gray, Ann McCauley (MU Extension), Lawanna Rothman (Excel Center student), Abby Courtney (Career and College Coordinator and teacher at Excel Center), Michelle McDowell (MU Extension), Sawiyyah Chanay (MU Extension)Excel Center Celebration flier– 5 year and RFW Designation

Recovery Friendly Schools transform student outcomes and employ staff who understand the socioeconomic and environmental factors that affect their academic success. Students who have enrolled in the adult high school have faced barriers such as unemployment, housing insecurity, a lack of transportation, and/or childcare issues.

As a Recovery Friendly Workplace, the school employs life coaches who address the social service needs of each student individually and works to help them overcome the barriers that are preventing them from meeting their academic goals.

Abby Courtney, a teacher and the Career and College Coordinator at the Excel Center, was instrumental in the school’s work to become recovery friendly.

“Becoming a recovery-friendly workplace is a public way to demonstrate what we have been doing all along,” she said. “Through words and deeds, we support our students, showing them that they matter and that we will stick with them in good times and bad. The Excel Center has an inclusive environment we all want to be a part of.”

The Excel Center campus now has additional tools and resources to support students and staff in recovery. Last October, the school completed each of the steps to earn the Recovery Friendly Workplace designation. These included training, planning, and delivering a declaration to staff and students stating the organization’s support for employees and students in recovery.

The Recovery Friendly Workplace designation comes at no cost to businesses. The University of Missouri Extension is funding the initiative thanks to a subaward funded through a Rural Opioids Technical Assistance-Regional (ROTA-R) grant, which is funded by SMHSA. It is the agency’s hope that schools which have been reluctant to give people in recovery a second chance will hear the success stories from the adult high school and decide to become recovery friendly, too.

The Extension received the subaward in partnership with Iowa State University’s Region 7 Networking Center for Rural Opioid Technical Assistance and Training at the Partners in Prevention Science Institute . The project addresses priority gaps and state-identified needs in rural counties in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska to offer training and technical assistance on the RFW model. The RFW program offers a systems approach to addressing recovery, mental health, and wellbeing and has partnered with agencies, technical assistance providers, and businesses throughout the four-state region, with a goal of expanding the Recovery Friendly Workplace model across the region.

The ROTA-R Recovery Friendly Workplace goals include identifying and prioritizing the needs of rural communities throughout Region 7, increasing the capacity to address opioid and stimulant related training and technical assistance, and increasing access to resources across the continuum of care and diverse audiences. Courtney’s goal is to see all six adult high schools throughout Missouri become designated, and she has been actively reaching out to them.

There are six Adult High Schools located throughout the state: in St. Louis, Columbia, Cape Girardeau, Florissant, Poplar Bluff and Springfield. Since Excel Adult High School became a Recovery Friendly campus, two more schools – one in Springfield, and one in St. Louis – have begun taking the steps to become certified as well.

Each school offers flexible class schedules, supportive relationships with staff, and a life coach who works with students to find solutions to challenges that could hinder their progress. They offer free drop-in childcare centers, transportation assistance, extended hours, and year-round operation, to support students studying to earn a high school diploma while navigating the everyday realities of life.
The mission behind the high school starts at the top and has a rippling effect throughout the building, according to Mike Reynolds, director of the Excel Center.

“We are proud to put the sign on our door that says we welcome all students to join us on the journey to earning their high school diploma,” Reynolds said. “We are proud to support all our students as they work toward changing their lives and the lives of their families in a positive, productive way.”
Kira Ritchie, a person in recovery who graduated with a high school diploma from Excel, expressed the support and gratitude she feels from being a student in a school that adheres to the tenets of a Recovery Friendly Workplace.

“Knowing that my school and the staff took their time to show the community that they are recovery friendly warms my heart,” Ritchie said. “I am thankful for everything this school and teachers have done to help me make it through–in and out of my recovery.”

Another student, Amy Breese, credits her sobriety to the school’s recovery friendly focus.
“The Excel Center is an amazing support system for people who lack confidence. Through their support and love, the staff helps us gain the confidence that addiction took from us,” she said. “By publicly announcing that they are recovery friendly, the Excel Center shows their students that they see us and will not turn their back on us. When I relapsed, they didn’t look down on me. They told me to pick myself up and get moving. They go above and beyond to show us that we matter.”

Because Recovery Friendly Workplaces and Schools address their staff and students’ social determinants of health, they contribute to healthier communities. They foster an awareness of the social and environmental factors that affect the health and wellbeing of all residents, and support community resources that address these issues.

Several months after the Recovery Friendly Workplace designation ceremony at the adult high school, I was invited to attend the next graduation ceremony for students. Two students, a mother and son, shared with me that they would not have succeeded if they hadn’t been attending a school that supported people in recovery, and the mental health needs of students.

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