Health

CCR History

In 1987, the Center started the first alcohol and drug prevention program in New York State, and one of the first in the country, to address the pervasive problem of substance abuse in the LGBT communities. Then called Project Connect, the program initially developed as a peer recovery support model that depended upon consumers of its services, volunteers in recovery and LGBT-identified care professionals to provide its vision, to implement its activities and to develop its strategies.

In 1998, the Center sought to enhance its ability to engage and utilize its recovering constituents and build upon the work that Project Connect and the Center had already done in assisting and supporting recovery in the LGBT communities through developing a structure through which people in recovery could come together to define issues, to develop strategies for education and support and to create and implement an unified message to carry to policymakers and treatment providers to insure that lesbians, gay men, transgender and bisexual persons, and all those in need of recovery, had equal, fair and affirmative access to quality services. SpeakOUT:LGBT Voices for Recovery organized constituents to educate City and State government agencies and policy makers on the need to comprehensively serve LGBT communities through prevention, treatment and training initiatives; forged collaborative relationships and alliances with other local and statewide efforts to deal more effectively with multiple issues of stigma, identity and the intersection of stigma eradication with recovery education and advocacy.

After SAMHSA refocused the RCSP initiative in 2001, from education and advocacy to more direct provision of peer-delivered support services, SpeakOUT refocused on creating and implementing new support activities including a range of topic-oriented peer-led recovery support groups for LGBT people in longer-term recovery; a mentoring project for the newly recovering; and development of monthly recovery cultural events and social activities such as: Artists in Recovery Exhibitions; Women of Color Games Night; Recovery Pow-Wows; a monthly cable TV show dedicated to LGBT Recovery and produced by SpeakOUT volunteers. At the end of the final grant cycle for SpeakOUT, the Center had woven the recovery-oriented cultural and social activities into its regular offerings and Center CARE resources were directed to development of a NYS-licensed, LGBT-identified, professional prevention and treatment program, a facility critically needed in the New York Metropolitan area and something the Center was on track to provide.

As a result of this intense focus on substance abuse prevention and treatment over the course of the past 15 years, a series of “best practices” have been developed at the Center for delivering health care and prevention services within the LGBT communities. These include models that address the following concepts or approaches: developmental stages of transgender participants, trauma recovery from experiences of harassment and discrimination, healing of losses experienced as a result of LGBT identity, community building , and the transtheoretical stages of behavioral change.

The Center’s track record with Project Connect, the development of its Gender Identity Project, modeled on Project Connect, as the first transgender peer support services program in the country, and the SpeakOUT Project have provided the Center with a solid foundation and on which to expand and enhance services to meet to address the emerging recovery needs of the LGBT communities in the greater metropolitan area, the growth of the LGBT communities in NYC in general and the transgender-identified recovery community in particular. The Center’s partner relationship with several new, LGBT-oriented grassroots recovery efforts, such as Chelsea Clubhouse and the Transgender Health Project, will enable development of peer-led and peer–directed services to these populations in need.


 
To contact us: Call 212.620.7310 and ask to speak with the Center CARE Recovery counselor.