What is a Recovery Community Organization (RCO)?

Three Primary RCO Strategies 

Recovery community organizations use three primary strategies to achieve their mission,  fostering recovery-focused and oriented values and communities. Each organization determines  the mix and priority given to each of these core strategies:  

1. Public education and awareness 

Putting a face and a voice on recovery to educate the public, policymakers, service providers,  and the media about the reality of recovery offers hope and dispels myths and pessimism about the power and reality of long-term addiction recovery. This strategy also draws attention to the social and policy barriers facing people in and seeking recovery. Growing numbers of individuals are speaking out publicly and sharing their experiences as members of recovery community organizations. They are using Faces & Voices recovery messaging to advocate while respecting the anonymity traditions of 12-step programs they may participate in – advocating with anonymity.  

Recovery community organizations have websites, speakers bureaus, host educational forums at schools, host Town Hall meetings, cable TV shows, and carry out many other public awareness activities. They are training people in recovery and family members as speakers and organizing public events, bringing recovery to the broader community. One well-known national awareness effort is the annual September National Recovery Month observances. Groups across the nation and now worldwide organize walks, rallies, and other events to focus attention on the reality of recovery. 

2. Policy advocacy 

To build recovery-oriented and supportive communities, recovery community organizations are addressing the public policy barriers that keep people from sustaining their recovery for the long haul. One consequence of addressing addiction as criminal justice, not a public health crisis, has been the imposition of legal barriers on people with criminal records. Advocacy is aimed at ending the punishment and incarceration of people for their status as people with histories of addiction. These barriers make it much more difficult for people to get their lives back on track, get a job, obtain housing, and reunite with their families and friends.  

Recovery community organizations are also engaged in advocacy at the local, state, and federal levels to promote policies and regulations in health insurance, program development, and resource allocation that make sense for the recovery community. Advocacy is a core prevention strategy. Prevention professionals and the recovery community can work together to educate legislators about pending legislation and its implications. 

3. Peer-based and other recovery support services and activities 

Recovery community organizations are innovating and delivering a variety of peer recovery support services and places to deliver those services, building a lasting physical presence in communities. Recovery coaching, telephone recovery support services, all-recovery meetings,  and other services are being organized and delivered by trained volunteers and/or paid staff.  A growing network of recovery community centers is home to these services as well as a place for community-wide sober social activities, workshops, meetings, and resource connections.  These also are services provided by prevention providers and other community-based organizations. 

Recovery Capital 

“Recovery capital is the breadth and depth of internal and external resources that can be drawn upon to initiate and sustain recovery from severe alcohol and other drug problems.” (Cloud &  Granfield, 2004). There are three types of recovery capital that can be influenced by addictions professionals: Personal, Family(Social), and Community (White & Cloud, 2008). 

Recovery capital is conceptually linked to natural recovery, solution-focused therapy, strengths-based case management, recovery management, resilience and protective factors, and the ideas of hardiness, wellness, and global health.  

The concept of Recovery Capital: 

• The goal in recovery is to build one’s recovery capital at all levels: Individual,  family/social, and community. 
• Communities must assess recovery capital on an ongoing basis.  
• Our work is to support recovery-linked cultural revitalization and community development movements.  
• We must constantly evaluate the effectiveness of our recovery programs and your own professional response to the recovery community.

William White explained at the Summit on Recovery: “The phrase ‘recovery community’  suggests something monolithic, while the phrase ‘recovery communities’ more accurately  reflects the great diversity – including adolescents, the elderly, race/ethnicity, roads to recovery – that characterizes those seeking and finding recovery, all of whom need to: 

• be at the table,  
• stay at the table, and  
• respect the rights of others to be at the table.”