In a first, a Durango nonprofit is bringing a peer-based recovery support program to La Plata County with a focus on the unhoused and supportive housing communities.
Community Compassion Outreach’s Recovery Empowerment Support Services Team (RESST) program will provide trained peer recovery coaches to help those who are struggling with substance use disorders and mental health conditions, supporting recovery and providing a bridge to medical providers and other services.
“Recovery support services are very important to the mental health community because we can go a little beyond what they can do,” said Donna Mae Baukat, executive director of Community Compassion Outreach and a trained peer support specialist.
“If people aren’t aware that recovery is possible for anybody, that is where we come in,” she said. “We provide that evidence, and we get them connected.”
For those with substance use disorders and mental health conditions, peer recovery coaches can offer a welcoming first step to recovery.
Peer support specialists are not medical providers or counselors. Rather, they are trained professionals who have previously struggled with substance abuse or mental health.
“Peer support is a person who has lived experience with substance abuse or alcoholism and/or the co-occurring depression, anxiety and all of the things that come with mental health issues,” Baukat said.
That lived experience gives peer support specialists a different lens through which they can work with their clients.
“The peer recovery coach, once they’re trained, are much different than sponsors for programs like AA,” Baukat said. “We do not diagnose, we do not give advice, we do not counsel. All we do is provide hope, encouragement and we want them to build their own strength and to recognize what those are.”
Community Compassion Outreach’s peer support services are meant to fill in the gaps in assistance for those with mental health or substance use disorders in La Plata County.
Baukat and her team of peer support specialists will help those in recovery with everything from emotional and spiritual support to picking up prescriptions and assisting with disability applications or obtaining an ID.
They also help their clients develop their own recovery plans and the pathways by which they will get there.
“Those are things that sponsors don’t do and counselors cannot do,” she said.
Peer support specialists can also steer their clients toward treatment.
“We are a bridge to the mental health, medical health professionals and other key human resources, as well as other spiritual types of programs that are available,” she said.
Research is limited, but initial studies suggest that peer recovery coaches can be an effective tool for tackling substance use disorders and mental health in communities.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, points to peer recovery coaches as an effective way to reduce substance use and improve recovery outcomes.
A study by Harvard researchers found that recovery coaches played an important role in navigating recovery and medical treatment and providing the intangible support necessary for a successful recovery.
A review paper published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment in 2016 found that peer recovery support services improved substance use and recovery outcomes.
More recent research has suggested an even stronger link between peer support specialists and positive outcomes for those tangled in substance use.
Researchers at the University of Maryland, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Washington published a paper in March 2021 that found recovery coaches significantly reduced opioid use and increased their clients’ engagement with medical treatment.
In the study, researchers saw a 44% decrease in hospitalizations and a 9% decrease in emergency room visits in the six months after contact with a recovery coach. They also saw a 66% increase in the use of outpatient treatment, such as visits to primary care, mental health providers and community health centers.
For Baukat, a survivor of suicide, anxiety and other mental health struggles, the program is a personal one.
“Because of my background and my ability to have overcome suicidal ideation and attempts, I wanted to use that experience for my clients,” she said.
In Baukat’s outreach work with the unhoused and supportive housing communities in recent years, she realized that there was not a peer recovery support program in La Plata County devoted to them.
She applied for a grant through West Slope Casa, which offers a network of behavioral health providers, and the state Office of Behavioral Health in 2021 and was awarded funding to help address substance use and mental health in those underserved populations.
“Our program is targeting people experiencing homelessness, and they may also be in Espero Apartments in permanent supportive housing where they transitioned,” she said.
Baukat has already begun working with clients and offering peer recovery coaching. On Tuesday, she started hosting activities, such as group meetings, life-skill practice and wellness plans at the Adventure Christian Church at 255 E. 11th St.
Every Tuesday and Friday, Baukat will offer those services in the hopes of attracting those who are suffering from substance abuse and mental health conditions.
“The goal of the program is to help people understand the effects of alcohol or other substances on their brain, how it affects their body (and) how it creates a condition in which you can’t function normally,” she said.
With their grant, Community Compassion Outreach and Baukat, who is finishing her peer support specialist certification, plan to hire two other peer support specialists who will undergo training with the Colorado Mental Wellness Network and work toward their certifications.
Baukat aims to eventually hire 10 peer recovery coaches to meet the needs of Durango’s unhoused and supportive housing communities.
As a part of these efforts, Baukat also hopes to find funding and assistance to build sober living houses. Without housing, Community Compassion Outreach’s peer recovery support program will not achieve its goals, she said.
“There are four dimensions that SAMHSA recognizes that make it possible for people to recover: home, health, community and purpose. If one of those is missing, recovery is near impossible,” she said. “Housing for my clients is the key.”
ahannon@durangoherald.com
