Step One Recovery Center Hosts Montgomery County Community Listening Session

Step One Recovery Center hosted a community listening session on July 9, allowing residents to weigh in on the kinds of services they wanted from the organization.

The Step One Recovery Center is an extension of Rise Up, a non-profit focused on providing “a safe, supportive community setting for individuals and families in recovery to establish, maintain and enhance recovery,” according to its website. Rise Up collaborates with multiple local communities to offer services such as narcan boxes and support classes.

“It’s so vital, especially in rural areas,” said counselor Sharon Rivera.

According to Rivera, the center is aimed to help individuals who “want recovery in their life,” as well as those mandated to their care by court order.

The new center will be split into two wings: one wing focused on recovery operations, and the other operated by Rise Up and focused on support. According to Ride Up director Ashley Black, the center will be initially focused on adults in need of recovery, with plans to expand assistance for younger people in the future.

Black also said the facility will have a 24-hour narcan box for those experiencing an opioid overdose.

“This is a brand spanking new thing,” said supervisor Stephanie Kucera.

However, before a Rise Up extension begins operation, the organization holds a community listening session to allow local residents to express their needs in regards to potential services. The non-profit has held two similar listening sessions in the past in Dublin and Eastman.

“We want the community to come, and attend and ask, ‘What is going well?’” said Black.

According to Black, the listening session saw 45 attendees which included local residents and representatives of other local “recovery-oriented” organizations, such as a church. The operators took time in the session to highlight these other organizations, as well as to hear about others they were unaware of.

For community feedback, Black said the notable needs expressed by the community members were transportation methods and more meetings. 

“It went very well,” said Black. “I was very pleased with it.”

In the future, the center will not host more listening sessions for community input. Instead, administrators will arrange regular “loving our community” meetings for communication with residents.

The center will also look into setting its operating hours to best cater to the schedules of its clients. To gather more data, the center will send out additional polls and surveys to local residents.

“We are not a traditional nine to five,” said Black.

Once the center has gathered a satisfactory amount of feedback from the community, the center will officially open. However, no official date has yet been set.

“We are hoping to open our doors very soon,” said Black.