New 'recovery warriors' to help others battle addiction

Jun. 8—The first class of "recovery warriors" of the Gloucester police Community Impact Unit's Teach to Reach Academy earned their certificates on Friday.

"Teach to Reach," which trains people to become recovery coaches, was possible through nearly $30,000 in grants with the aim of training about 40 recovery coaches to provide peer-to-peer support for those looking to overcome addiction to alcohol, opiates or other substances.

The funding from Beverly and Addison Gilbert hospitals and the Yearley Family Foundation supports training and 35 supervision-hours necessary to be eligible to become state certified. The funding supports two academy sessions, one this spring and one in the fall. The training was targeted to members of the community who may be in recovery, allies and those who work in local social service agencies.

The training, held at the department's Community Impact Unit at 67 Middle St., was provided at no cost, and was the brainchild of Tito Rodriguez, the unit's community navigator.

Rodriguez said the model of a police force training recovery coaches in the community is rare.

"They've had recovery coaching classes to train police on recovery coaching techniques," he said, "but this is the first time that a police department is training people to become recovery coaches as far as I know. It's sort of flipping the script," he said, crediting police Chief Ed Conley for the support.

This first training took place over five weeks and graduated 16 students. The program started with 20, but four could not finish for a variety of reasons and Rodriguez said the plan is to have them cycle through the next training, which is tentatively scheduled for September.

Rodriguez facilitated the course with co-facilitator Michelle Simons, the special program coordinator and addiction grants project coordinator at North Shore Community College.

"They passed, yeah," Simons said. "Absolutely. A lot of spirit. A lot of recovery advocates."

A show of hands on Friday showed 10 out of 16 participants were in recovery.

"It was part of my journey," said Bill Hartwell, 52, of Gloucester, about what attracted him to the training. "Getting sober wasn't enough ... I needed to give back instead of taking."

Harrison Usher, 34, of Salem, said about eight months ago he started working in harm reduction at One Stop, a prevention and screening services program of the North Shore Health Project on Center Street.

"I thought this would be a really excellent way to start to bridge" a gap between harm reduction and recovery, said Usher, adding that the program has given him a new perspective. He said he was in recovery himself, and had been anxious about coming into the program and not fitting in.

"After Day 1, I was like, 'No, this is like an extended family now,'" Usher said.

"The level of compassion that's exhibited through the exercises and all of that, and also their willingness to learn, which to me is a hallmark of humility, which is one of the traits that good recovery coaches have," Rodriguez said about the class. "And there is a lot of that in here."

Lisette Carrasquillo said she drove all the way from Newburyport to take the training.

"We need more of this in Newburyport," she said. "We need more of this along the whole Seacoast area, in Haverhill, even down in Lawrence, especially. So hopefully, this kind of like starts something."

Rodriguez is well known statewide for his outreach work, helping those struggling with addiction to find help.

On May 5, Rodriguez and the department were honored by the Metro Boston CIT Training and Technical Assistance Center during an awards presentation at the Peabody Boston Marriott.

The Police Department was honored with a Synergy Award for its outreach to those with behavioral health challenges.

Rodriguez moved to the region from New York in 1976 to direct a human services agency, and he has also struggled with alcohol and drug misuse. He has been in recovery for 40 years.

As he became sober, a large part of the 12-Step Program was serving as a sponsor and helping others, leading him to become active in the recovery community. Rodriguez served as the jail-diversion coordinator for the Lynn Police Department and worked with the Gloucester Angel Initiative and Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative before joining the Police Department as a community navigator in 2020.

He said part of the evolution of the grant is to broaden the scope of recovery services in Gloucester. Part of it, too, is to ease the burden on Rodriguez, who is 73, from the many people who reach out to him looking to get into recovery.

"We'll have a bunch of 'recovery warriors' in Gloucester who can sort of pick up and do the stuff I would normally do and they can do it silently, I don't need to hear about it, but it lessens my load because it's a big load in Gloucester."

Local organizations or agencies in need of a recovery coach volunteer or intern can contact the Gloucester Police Department Community Impact Unit Community Navigator Tito Rodriguez at trodriguez@gloucester-ma.gov.