September 27, 2023 • 20 mins
In this week's episode, we connect with Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston of Jordan Peer Recovery. Dr. Jordan-Alston and her team have worked systematically to create change through diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility for all, starting with peer recovery training and certification in every US state and internationally. She also has some powerful stories to share.
- Gaps in inclusion both in research and human services: Lack of cultural diversity in delivering services while neglecting marginalized groups (LGBTQIA, black indigenous people of color, and people incarcerated)
- Peer support is growing and expanding, with a focus on connecting individuals with similar experiences and creating systems of support within communities.
- Pay it forward: Masica shares her personal experience with diabetes, including diagnosis and treatment, and how she overcame the initial shock and fear to live a full life. Much later in life she connects with a young girl at the beach who is also living with diabetes, and offers words of encouragement and support, highlighting the importance of sharing experiences and empowering others in recovery.
- Culturally responsive practices in human services: avoid assumptions and ask individuals what works best for them.
- Organizations should prioritize setting up internal peer groups to foster better marketing exposure, customer service experiences, and community engagement.
- Grief and loss with a personal story: Masica shares her personal journey with grief and loss, including the death of her father, grandmother, godmother, and brother, and how she turned her lived experience into a resource for others. This work aims to provide a safe space for people to process their emotions and find support through her lived experiences with grief and through the experience of others
Link to Dr. Alston's Bio and Work
https://jordanpeerrecovery.com
https://www.griefandlosscentersofamerica.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-masica-jordan-alston-lcpc-cprs-a5610b36/
If you have questions or comments or would like to be a guest on the Recovery Discovery Podcast, send an email to:
deann@showupandstay.org
More information about our project is available at:
https://www.showupandstay.org/
https://www.soberpositiveworkplace.org/
For podcast updates, follow us on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/showupandstayorg/
Music and Audio Production by Katie Hare.
https://www.hare.works
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (00:06):
Oh hello. This is the sober
positive workplace seriesbrought to you by show up and
stay. I'm your host DeannKnighton.
In one of my world famousUNsponsored plugs, I want to
(00:26):
talk about a conversation Iheard on the flourishing after
addiction podcast, which ishosted by Dr. Carl Eric Fisher,
who was a guest on this show, hewas speaking with Dr. John
Kelly. He is the first EndowedProfessor in addiction medicine
at Harvard. And he is also thefounder and director of the
(00:46):
recovery Research Institute atMass General Hospital. And this
conversation touched on a veryimportant area of interest for
me and for our mission at showup and say, to look at the
recovery gap, and that spaceafter acute treatment, where
you've begun the process ofhealing from the substance to
(01:07):
all of the pieces of the puzzlethat are needed for long term
recovery. When you heardiscussion about recovery
treatment, it really is twobuckets that operate very
differently. Research supportsthat essentially the 12 week
model that we have in place inour existing healthcare system
for encouraging early remission,helping someone through the
(01:31):
first stages of withdrawal,potentially, and hopefully
setting them on the stage forlong term recovery. That
represents about 95% of thestandard treatments that are
available for recovery. However,there are many significant
landmarks in the process of longterm recovery and sustaining
long term recovery. Andhopefully avoiding relapse
(01:55):
mutual help groups like AAA and12 Step programs have really
been the go to for a good partof history. Those groups grew
out of necessity, because theservices that were needed to
support individuals didn'texist. It's a story we hear time
and time again. And although itcan sometimes feel very
(02:16):
disappointing, what happens isthat these grassroot movements
come out of the woodwork. Movingover to today's conversation, I
wanted to have a guest thatcould speak to both the
importance of considering how weapply the right amount of
cultural sensitivity to theissue of recovery from
substances and other traumas,but also someone who could speak
(02:39):
to the importance of having safenetworks, not only in our
community services, but withinour organizations. I needed
someone with some hands onexperience to help us understand
some of the building blocks thatwould be needed for an
individual or group looking tobuild up a peer driven safe
network within theirorganization. This is Dr.
(03:03):
Masika, Jordan, Austin andI, in my mind, think I'm 21. So
I won't give you a year I wasborn. My father when I was born.
He was a blue collar worker wassheet metals and the union. My
mother and father. They lastedfor years after I was born and
got a divorce. My mother as shewas a police officer, my father
had some injuries. So he woulduse drugs. And he had some
(03:24):
background to every single oneof his siblings had a substance
use disorder disorder, the funnywords to call somebody that's
struggling to live, they hadthese experiences. My father's
father was a war vet and wasaddicted to alcohol. I remember
him making moonshine in hisbedroom that he would drink like
tea every day, all day. And Ilove them all. But my father had
(03:45):
double digit siblings, everylast one of them had a substance
use experience. One of themcommitted suicide when I was in
high school. My father wants todie a slow death over a decade
because he was diagnosed withpancreatitis and 10 years later,
he died as his power of attorneynavigating I remember showing up
at a hospital room, middle ofthe night, nobody announces him.
(04:05):
So I didn't, as Dr. JordanAustin in the middle of an ER at
nighttime, right? Like I justshow up as a daughter. And I'm
not saying credentials, etc.
Because I'm not working in thatcapacity. I say my father's
power of attorney, my name ismessika because I would have
pink sweat suits or whatever, inmy hair in a ponytail. And they
(04:26):
would give me the look ofdisgust is what I felt like
because they got that I wasn'tworthy, and my father wasn't
worthy of better treatment. Andso there were days that I had to
say, I'm Dr. Jordan, and thenautomatically I would get a
difference in their reaction.
And I would speak their languageand I would say I need this,
this, this and this and themoment I showed up in a
professional credential. I gotthe treatment I deserved, but it
(04:46):
shouldn't have to be because noteveryone shows up like that.
DeAnn Knighton (04:50):
I couldn't begin to read this bio to you today.
But I am going to read a bit ofit just to give you some insight
into her amazingly richbackground, not Drosten
completed at all. Doctorate ofEducation and Counseling and
Psychology in 2010. She is aLicensed Clinical Professional
Counselor, a certified peerrecovery specialist. She has
many great accomplishments toknow CNNs Lisa Lange interviewed
(05:13):
her on her work to promoteentrepreneurship and
marginalized communities. Youmay have also seen her work
featured in the 2010 documentaryfilm Waiting for Superman. Dr.
Jordan Olson is an example ofone of those individuals I
mentioned at the beginning, whosaw holes in our system, and did
the best that she could to tryand fill them. In addition to
(05:35):
her work as a tenured professor,she is the founder of Jordan
peer recovery, as well as peeraffinity LLC, which she'll talk
a little bit about on thisepisode. She has assisted over
50 agencies in three countriesin developing various clinical,
culturally responsive traumaresponsive and evidence based
programs, including peer supportprograms,
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (05:56):
I'll start with an overview of the
work that we are doing, I say webecause I feel like I've built
an army, there was a statementthat there used to be a war on
drugs, and it's not a war ondrugs. But it does take an army
to create change. And that'swhat we're doing systematically.
Our focus is on diversity,equity, inclusion and
accessibility for all so thatall people can experience
(06:18):
recovery, the way that we havedone that, and the way we
started doing that was throughpeer recovery training, just by
definition for people that maybe listening that do not know
what a peer recovery specialistis, or a certified peer recovery
specialist is in differentstates are called different
things. If you go to New York,there's a title for it go to
Northlanders. The title fornonetheless, we are in Georgia
(06:38):
recovery is in every US state.
So we did the work of gettingapproved through each
certification board. Now, thetechnical side of this means the
same way that a certifiednursing assistant goes and gets
trained and certified peerrecovery specialist goes and
gets trained along with theirlived experiences, they're able
to sit through an examination inour state or either at the
(06:59):
national level that training wasexisting before we started, but
what I would go into rooms andfigured out was that their
training was happening. Butthere was a lack of cultural
diversity in delivering theservices. So if you happen to
not be a middle agedheterosexual white male that's
in recovery, then some of theservices may not have been
(07:19):
written or developed for you.
Now, that's not a slight againsta middle aged heterosexual white
male, they need services toanybody that is struggling or
trying to recover from thesubstance use experience, they
need support, but where themarket and the industry of human
services had done a great job inhelping one particular type of
(07:41):
person, they had not done sowell, in terms of LGBTQIA. Plus,
in terms of black indigenouspeople of color, it's bypass in
terms of Latin x in terms ofpeople that have been
incarcerated, it wasn't done aswell.
DeAnn Knighton (08:03):
When you hear the word peer support, or peer
recovery, it typically does meanthat there's been some sort of
certification put in place forthat individual to reach back to
people at earlier stages withina crisis and support them
through that. It doesn't have tomean that though. And many times
that work is done withoutcertification attached to it.
(08:25):
This type of support issomething that we see in
Community Medicine and HumanServices. But the idea and the
concept is growing and expandingand is applicable to essentially
any group of humans that wantsto create some sort of system
within that group to be able tosupport the needs of those
struggling with substance usedisorder or maintaining long
(08:47):
term recovery.
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (08:47):
With Jordan peer recovery has done
today is set up a nationallyapproved and now international
peer recovery training so thatindividuals like myself, like my
father, whether you have directexperience or lived experience
can navigate the world ofsubstance use experiences and
connect with somebody that has asimilar experience or similar
story to yours. But we realizedthat some of the systems were
(09:09):
not ready. And I'm not namingany specific hospital as the
system was not ready. But theywanted to hire individuals with
lived experiences, but theydidn't have the structure in
place to adequately supervisesupport etc. We started building
infrastructure, whether it wasfidelity measurement tools, we
started to create accreditationstandards so that there was
quality and the work they wouldhave this list of digital tools
(09:33):
that we enable them with, weeven created something with
recovery on demand. So you couldgo through our peer affinity
platform and log in and you cantype you know how you doing
check GPT where you can type ina topic before check GPT we
created a system where you couldgo in and you can type
depression or just lost mybrother and in that topic, you
will hear from recorded videopeer recovery specialist and
(09:55):
coaches telling you how theynavigated without relapsing
I got diagnosed with diabeteswhen I was 1010 years old. I
(10:16):
show up in an era with my mom, Iremember this lady who drew my
blood. She said, I'm a diabetic.
I've had diabetes since I was ateenager. And she said, I live a
great life. Your blood sugar isreally high, the doctor is going
to talk to you, but I want youto not be scared. And I trusted
this lady. I didn't know herfrom Adam's Eve, but I knew she
knew whatever it is that I wasgoing to hear. She knew about it
already. So I walk into theoffice with the doctor, my mom
(10:39):
sitting there, I've never seenmy mother and pride day in her
life. She looks concerned, but Ican't discern it. But I hear the
doctor saying, if you wouldn'thave brought her in here, she
would have died in three days.
That's why I'm in a why can Isee this little girl now the
technology has advanced and I'mgrateful for whoever created all
(11:00):
this text to treat diabetics,right. I have something that's
in my arm that has a sensor andalso where insulin pump. And so
I saw this little girl at thebeach with her family and she
looked like she was about my agewhen I was diagnosed. And I
walked up to her and I said,Hey, I said Dexcom her parents
get me because I would walk upto the child and start talking.
She could see my arm. I said,Yeah, I've had this since I was
(11:21):
10. No, she was fine. Don'tremember being a 10 year old.
Then I remember my mother'sface. And then her mom, he was
like, were you able to havekids? I said, Yeah, I got three.
She said Was it difficult foryou get pregnant? Absolutely
not. She's there. How's yourhealth and I'm not offended at
all. I'm there to serve becausemy heart opened up to her
because I remember what it waslike. You can put that same
experience on top of anybodythat has a lived experience was
(11:44):
recovery and recovery fromanything recovery from more
recovery from addiction. Andwhen you get to share how you
overcame and how you survivednot only empowers you, but it
reaches back to the person who'sscared. He was tearing up and I
was like, It's okay, yourdaughter is gonna be fine. She's
gonna be absolutely okay. We'llbe right
back. sober, positive workplacedivision of show up and stay is
(12:10):
a nonprofit on a mission to helporganizations bridge the
recovery gap, a space thatexists for individuals, between
healing from a substance andhealing their lives. We partner
with organizations to build moreinclusive environments that
reflect an investment in soberpositivity and awareness. These
(12:31):
organizations are normalizederrs, pushing back against
stigma and doing their part tochange the social consciousness.
For more information, pleasevisit our website at Silver
positive workplace.org.
Now back to the show. We in theworld of Human Services and pay
recovering golf and HumanServices, you're not a
(12:52):
clinician, but you still fallunder the scope of Human
Services, we have never been aone size fits all model. So a
lot of times we'll go throughthese things that we call
evidence based practices, we'llgo to these EBPs. And we'll say
well, this treats depression.
This is the best ebp for someonethat is struggling with
addiction. The problem with thatis the research that has been
(13:14):
used to get us to that statementhas not included a culturally
responsive lens. The problem iswhen you have an oversaturation
of one population, unless youstate that that EVP is just for
that population, then it'smisapplied research, I run I run
every morning. And if I gorunning outside, and I'm doing a
(13:34):
couple of miles, my shoe size isan eight and women's, if you
gave me a size nine shoe and yousay I know it doesn't fit you,
but we're gonna stuff tissue inthe front of it and then let you
run. I can't run it my fullpace. It's not because the
population cannot do well. Andrecovery is just that we put SAS
tennis shoes and stuff tissue inthe front. It is a challenge,
(13:57):
though to say when you'reworking with someone don't start
with the EVP that was a questionthat question is what works for
you. I want to build a clinicalreport. If I'm a clinician, if
I'm a peer, I want to build arelationship. Whatever report
I'm trying to build with you, Ican't build it on a notion that
I know what works for you. We dofamily based treatments. And
we've asked people to bring intheir mom, their dad. But what
(14:19):
if I got two moms, one of mybest friends she grew up in the
foster care system. When she gotmarried. Her father had already
passed and her mother passedwhen she was a child, but she
had three women walk her downout. So we have to ask and not
assume that we know what's bestfor people and that's called
being culturally responsive.
DeAnn Knighton (14:39):
If you've been following the show, one of the
things we've talked about isSalesforce and their creation of
an internal peer group that grewsomewhat organically. I wanted
to get Dr. Jordan-Alston'ssuggestions on how an
organization would get startedsetting up an internal peer
group of this type.
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (14:59):
Yes, it is something that every
organization should do and everyorganization should build into
their budget to do. Regardlessof what field you're in. What
data says is that if you canglobally know the EIA, you're
going to have better marketingexposures, you'll have better
customer service experiences,you'll have more returned and
loyal customers, you'll havemore community engagement.
(15:21):
Overall, it's a businessmetrics. So the same way that we
look at revenue as a keyperformance indicator, and a lot
of businesses, you also have tolook at DNI, as as a key
performance indicator in anybusiness if you want it to be
sustained. I have another groupto really focus on the EIA work,
and it's called the equal peopleproject, we have worked with a
number of organizations, and wedevelop this plan for them that
(15:44):
they can implement immediately.
And when they implement theplan, we are there to coach them
along the way. And part of thatcoaching is for them to
establish a community advisorygroup, there should be people in
your advisory group that has areal stake in your community and
in the clients that you serve,allowed them to be a part and
have a voice and I mean, Abro,meaningful seat at the table,
(16:04):
create a table and create a seatat that table for them. You
would start with assessing whoyou're serving, not every
organization is by definition ofservice entity. When you
mentioned Salesforce, you stillserve your employees. And if you
don't serve your employees,you're not going to hit
yourself. And if there's any wayanybody within recovery story
can tell you this, sometimesaddiction can get in the way of
(16:26):
them being successful in theirroles. There's accreditation, we
actually offer it, it's calledJump and it's Jordan universal
measures and practices, youwould start with the the
organizational Foundation. And Isay organizational Foundation,
because if you start somethingand you don't have the right
foundations in place, then eventhough you mean well, you won't
end well. A lot of times, unlessyou just have the internal
(16:48):
capacity to do it, you mighthave to outsource some of that
to get the foundation in place.
But once that foundation is inplace, you start to build your
own peer treatment team, you canget people on the job and get
them certified as peer recoverycoaches, and then you know,
create a community inside ofyour organization. And even if
you didn't go all the way ofgetting them certified, you
(17:10):
certainly can at least create asupport group. And whether
that's virtual or in person orhybrid combination, it's good to
start again with the rightfoundation. But once that
foundation is in place, I feellike that's something that can
be self sustaining by mostorganizations. Our website is
literally www that Jordan peppercompany.com. We also have a
(17:34):
couple of other grant relatedprograms that entities that want
to get people certified, theycan either a become a community
partner of ours, if it'scommunity, or than when we have
grants and things of that naturethat we're using funding, they
don't have to pay out of pocketfor that they can just come in
as a community partner and beincluded in the work that we're
proposing to whatever the entityis that we're getting funding
(17:56):
from.
DeAnn Knighton (17:57):
A big thank you to Dr. Jordan-Alston for the
time she offered us, I asked herto close us up by sharing
information about a project thatis near and dear to her heart.
This is the work she is doingrelated to grief.
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (18:11):
I do work in that space because of my
own lived experience. So Iapproach it from the pit of
recovery. My father died in2018. My grandmother who was a
third parent to me died in 2020.
And then in 2021, my god motherdied. And then two months later,
my brother died. And then within12 hours, my grandfather died.
And at the end of that I wantedto drink. So I'm a person with
(18:32):
the lived experience as well. Iwant it to drink and I never
picked up the battle. I starteddocumenting my experiences and
saying, Okay, I was angry, Iwent through all of the
different emotions that peoplego through and grief and loss.
And I wanted to know how tonavigate this as a trained
clinician. And as a peerrecovery coach, I found that a
lot of the stuff that was outthere at work some but it wasn't
what I needed in the moment, Iwas going to crisis, and I
(18:56):
needed some girls help. And so Istarted documenting my journey
from email and I remember afriend of mine her mom died a
few months after my brotherdied. And I got into the parking
lot thinking I was going to beable to support her. And I
hyperventilated in the parkinglot could not breathe. And I
said, Oh, this is Something'sgotta give. And so I documented
all of that me videos and allthat started walking people
(19:18):
through I cried out loud andgave permission for people to
cry. And so I started recordingcrying sessions and I would say
all right, but I'm not to gorunning, go running with me.
I'll put all of that on demandand an animal in the barn and
but I started documenting otherpeople's lived experiences
For more information, pleasevisit our website, sober
(19:42):
positive workplace dot for showup and stay.org This podcast is
written Created and produced byme DM featuring music from the
wickedly talented At hair
Oh hello. This is the sober
positive workplace seriesbrought to you by show up and
stay. I'm your host DeannKnighton.
In one of my world famousUNsponsored plugs, I want to
(00:26):
talk about a conversation Iheard on the flourishing after
addiction podcast, which ishosted by Dr. Carl Eric Fisher,
who was a guest on this show, hewas speaking with Dr. John
Kelly. He is the first EndowedProfessor in addiction medicine
at Harvard. And he is also thefounder and director of the
(00:46):
recovery Research Institute atMass General Hospital. And this
conversation touched on a veryimportant area of interest for
me and for our mission at showup and say, to look at the
recovery gap, and that spaceafter acute treatment, where
you've begun the process ofhealing from the substance to
(01:07):
all of the pieces of the puzzlethat are needed for long term
recovery. When you heardiscussion about recovery
treatment, it really is twobuckets that operate very
differently. Research supportsthat essentially the 12 week
model that we have in place inour existing healthcare system
for encouraging early remission,helping someone through the
(01:31):
first stages of withdrawal,potentially, and hopefully
setting them on the stage forlong term recovery. That
represents about 95% of thestandard treatments that are
available for recovery. However,there are many significant
landmarks in the process of longterm recovery and sustaining
long term recovery. Andhopefully avoiding relapse
(01:55):
mutual help groups like AAA and12 Step programs have really
been the go to for a good partof history. Those groups grew
out of necessity, because theservices that were needed to
support individuals didn'texist. It's a story we hear time
and time again. And although itcan sometimes feel very
(02:16):
disappointing, what happens isthat these grassroot movements
come out of the woodwork. Movingover to today's conversation, I
wanted to have a guest thatcould speak to both the
importance of considering how weapply the right amount of
cultural sensitivity to theissue of recovery from
substances and other traumas,but also someone who could speak
(02:39):
to the importance of having safenetworks, not only in our
community services, but withinour organizations. I needed
someone with some hands onexperience to help us understand
some of the building blocks thatwould be needed for an
individual or group looking tobuild up a peer driven safe
network within theirorganization. This is Dr.
(03:03):
Masika, Jordan, Austin andI, in my mind, think I'm 21. So
I won't give you a year I wasborn. My father when I was born.
He was a blue collar worker wassheet metals and the union. My
mother and father. They lastedfor years after I was born and
got a divorce. My mother as shewas a police officer, my father
had some injuries. So he woulduse drugs. And he had some
(03:24):
background to every single oneof his siblings had a substance
use disorder disorder, the funnywords to call somebody that's
struggling to live, they hadthese experiences. My father's
father was a war vet and wasaddicted to alcohol. I remember
him making moonshine in hisbedroom that he would drink like
tea every day, all day. And Ilove them all. But my father had
(03:45):
double digit siblings, everylast one of them had a substance
use experience. One of themcommitted suicide when I was in
high school. My father wants todie a slow death over a decade
because he was diagnosed withpancreatitis and 10 years later,
he died as his power of attorneynavigating I remember showing up
at a hospital room, middle ofthe night, nobody announces him.
(04:05):
So I didn't, as Dr. JordanAustin in the middle of an ER at
nighttime, right? Like I justshow up as a daughter. And I'm
not saying credentials, etc.
Because I'm not working in thatcapacity. I say my father's
power of attorney, my name ismessika because I would have
pink sweat suits or whatever, inmy hair in a ponytail. And they
(04:26):
would give me the look ofdisgust is what I felt like
because they got that I wasn'tworthy, and my father wasn't
worthy of better treatment. Andso there were days that I had to
say, I'm Dr. Jordan, and thenautomatically I would get a
difference in their reaction.
And I would speak their languageand I would say I need this,
this, this and this and themoment I showed up in a
professional credential. I gotthe treatment I deserved, but it
(04:46):
shouldn't have to be because noteveryone shows up like that.
DeAnn Knighton (04:50):
I couldn't begin to read this bio to you today.
But I am going to read a bit ofit just to give you some insight
into her amazingly richbackground, not Drosten
completed at all. Doctorate ofEducation and Counseling and
Psychology in 2010. She is aLicensed Clinical Professional
Counselor, a certified peerrecovery specialist. She has
many great accomplishments toknow CNNs Lisa Lange interviewed
(05:13):
her on her work to promoteentrepreneurship and
marginalized communities. Youmay have also seen her work
featured in the 2010 documentaryfilm Waiting for Superman. Dr.
Jordan Olson is an example ofone of those individuals I
mentioned at the beginning, whosaw holes in our system, and did
the best that she could to tryand fill them. In addition to
(05:35):
her work as a tenured professor,she is the founder of Jordan
peer recovery, as well as peeraffinity LLC, which she'll talk
a little bit about on thisepisode. She has assisted over
50 agencies in three countriesin developing various clinical,
culturally responsive traumaresponsive and evidence based
programs, including peer supportprograms,
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (05:56):
I'll start with an overview of the
work that we are doing, I say webecause I feel like I've built
an army, there was a statementthat there used to be a war on
drugs, and it's not a war ondrugs. But it does take an army
to create change. And that'swhat we're doing systematically.
Our focus is on diversity,equity, inclusion and
accessibility for all so thatall people can experience
(06:18):
recovery, the way that we havedone that, and the way we
started doing that was throughpeer recovery training, just by
definition for people that maybe listening that do not know
what a peer recovery specialistis, or a certified peer recovery
specialist is in differentstates are called different
things. If you go to New York,there's a title for it go to
Northlanders. The title fornonetheless, we are in Georgia
(06:38):
recovery is in every US state.
So we did the work of gettingapproved through each
certification board. Now, thetechnical side of this means the
same way that a certifiednursing assistant goes and gets
trained and certified peerrecovery specialist goes and
gets trained along with theirlived experiences, they're able
to sit through an examination inour state or either at the
(06:59):
national level that training wasexisting before we started, but
what I would go into rooms andfigured out was that their
training was happening. Butthere was a lack of cultural
diversity in delivering theservices. So if you happen to
not be a middle agedheterosexual white male that's
in recovery, then some of theservices may not have been
(07:19):
written or developed for you.
Now, that's not a slight againsta middle aged heterosexual white
male, they need services toanybody that is struggling or
trying to recover from thesubstance use experience, they
need support, but where themarket and the industry of human
services had done a great job inhelping one particular type of
(07:41):
person, they had not done sowell, in terms of LGBTQIA. Plus,
in terms of black indigenouspeople of color, it's bypass in
terms of Latin x in terms ofpeople that have been
incarcerated, it wasn't done aswell.
DeAnn Knighton (08:03):
When you hear the word peer support, or peer
recovery, it typically does meanthat there's been some sort of
certification put in place forthat individual to reach back to
people at earlier stages withina crisis and support them
through that. It doesn't have tomean that though. And many times
that work is done withoutcertification attached to it.
(08:25):
This type of support issomething that we see in
Community Medicine and HumanServices. But the idea and the
concept is growing and expandingand is applicable to essentially
any group of humans that wantsto create some sort of system
within that group to be able tosupport the needs of those
struggling with substance usedisorder or maintaining long
(08:47):
term recovery.
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (08:47):
With Jordan peer recovery has done
today is set up a nationallyapproved and now international
peer recovery training so thatindividuals like myself, like my
father, whether you have directexperience or lived experience
can navigate the world ofsubstance use experiences and
connect with somebody that has asimilar experience or similar
story to yours. But we realizedthat some of the systems were
(09:09):
not ready. And I'm not namingany specific hospital as the
system was not ready. But theywanted to hire individuals with
lived experiences, but theydidn't have the structure in
place to adequately supervisesupport etc. We started building
infrastructure, whether it wasfidelity measurement tools, we
started to create accreditationstandards so that there was
quality and the work they wouldhave this list of digital tools
(09:33):
that we enable them with, weeven created something with
recovery on demand. So you couldgo through our peer affinity
platform and log in and you cantype you know how you doing
check GPT where you can type ina topic before check GPT we
created a system where you couldgo in and you can type
depression or just lost mybrother and in that topic, you
will hear from recorded videopeer recovery specialist and
(09:55):
coaches telling you how theynavigated without relapsing
I got diagnosed with diabeteswhen I was 1010 years old. I
(10:16):
show up in an era with my mom, Iremember this lady who drew my
blood. She said, I'm a diabetic.
I've had diabetes since I was ateenager. And she said, I live a
great life. Your blood sugar isreally high, the doctor is going
to talk to you, but I want youto not be scared. And I trusted
this lady. I didn't know herfrom Adam's Eve, but I knew she
knew whatever it is that I wasgoing to hear. She knew about it
already. So I walk into theoffice with the doctor, my mom
(10:39):
sitting there, I've never seenmy mother and pride day in her
life. She looks concerned, but Ican't discern it. But I hear the
doctor saying, if you wouldn'thave brought her in here, she
would have died in three days.
That's why I'm in a why can Isee this little girl now the
technology has advanced and I'mgrateful for whoever created all
(11:00):
this text to treat diabetics,right. I have something that's
in my arm that has a sensor andalso where insulin pump. And so
I saw this little girl at thebeach with her family and she
looked like she was about my agewhen I was diagnosed. And I
walked up to her and I said,Hey, I said Dexcom her parents
get me because I would walk upto the child and start talking.
She could see my arm. I said,Yeah, I've had this since I was
(11:21):
10. No, she was fine. Don'tremember being a 10 year old.
Then I remember my mother'sface. And then her mom, he was
like, were you able to havekids? I said, Yeah, I got three.
She said Was it difficult foryou get pregnant? Absolutely
not. She's there. How's yourhealth and I'm not offended at
all. I'm there to serve becausemy heart opened up to her
because I remember what it waslike. You can put that same
experience on top of anybodythat has a lived experience was
(11:44):
recovery and recovery fromanything recovery from more
recovery from addiction. Andwhen you get to share how you
overcame and how you survivednot only empowers you, but it
reaches back to the person who'sscared. He was tearing up and I
was like, It's okay, yourdaughter is gonna be fine. She's
gonna be absolutely okay. We'llbe right
back. sober, positive workplacedivision of show up and stay is
(12:10):
a nonprofit on a mission to helporganizations bridge the
recovery gap, a space thatexists for individuals, between
healing from a substance andhealing their lives. We partner
with organizations to build moreinclusive environments that
reflect an investment in soberpositivity and awareness. These
(12:31):
organizations are normalizederrs, pushing back against
stigma and doing their part tochange the social consciousness.
For more information, pleasevisit our website at Silver
positive workplace.org.
Now back to the show. We in theworld of Human Services and pay
recovering golf and HumanServices, you're not a
(12:52):
clinician, but you still fallunder the scope of Human
Services, we have never been aone size fits all model. So a
lot of times we'll go throughthese things that we call
evidence based practices, we'llgo to these EBPs. And we'll say
well, this treats depression.
This is the best ebp for someonethat is struggling with
addiction. The problem with thatis the research that has been
(13:14):
used to get us to that statementhas not included a culturally
responsive lens. The problem iswhen you have an oversaturation
of one population, unless youstate that that EVP is just for
that population, then it'smisapplied research, I run I run
every morning. And if I gorunning outside, and I'm doing a
(13:34):
couple of miles, my shoe size isan eight and women's, if you
gave me a size nine shoe and yousay I know it doesn't fit you,
but we're gonna stuff tissue inthe front of it and then let you
run. I can't run it my fullpace. It's not because the
population cannot do well. Andrecovery is just that we put SAS
tennis shoes and stuff tissue inthe front. It is a challenge,
(13:57):
though to say when you'reworking with someone don't start
with the EVP that was a questionthat question is what works for
you. I want to build a clinicalreport. If I'm a clinician, if
I'm a peer, I want to build arelationship. Whatever report
I'm trying to build with you, Ican't build it on a notion that
I know what works for you. We dofamily based treatments. And
we've asked people to bring intheir mom, their dad. But what
(14:19):
if I got two moms, one of mybest friends she grew up in the
foster care system. When she gotmarried. Her father had already
passed and her mother passedwhen she was a child, but she
had three women walk her downout. So we have to ask and not
assume that we know what's bestfor people and that's called
being culturally responsive.
DeAnn Knighton (14:39):
If you've been following the show, one of the
things we've talked about isSalesforce and their creation of
an internal peer group that grewsomewhat organically. I wanted
to get Dr. Jordan-Alston'ssuggestions on how an
organization would get startedsetting up an internal peer
group of this type.
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (14:59):
Yes, it is something that every
organization should do and everyorganization should build into
their budget to do. Regardlessof what field you're in. What
data says is that if you canglobally know the EIA, you're
going to have better marketingexposures, you'll have better
customer service experiences,you'll have more returned and
loyal customers, you'll havemore community engagement.
(15:21):
Overall, it's a businessmetrics. So the same way that we
look at revenue as a keyperformance indicator, and a lot
of businesses, you also have tolook at DNI, as as a key
performance indicator in anybusiness if you want it to be
sustained. I have another groupto really focus on the EIA work,
and it's called the equal peopleproject, we have worked with a
number of organizations, and wedevelop this plan for them that
(15:44):
they can implement immediately.
And when they implement theplan, we are there to coach them
along the way. And part of thatcoaching is for them to
establish a community advisorygroup, there should be people in
your advisory group that has areal stake in your community and
in the clients that you serve,allowed them to be a part and
have a voice and I mean, Abro,meaningful seat at the table,
(16:04):
create a table and create a seatat that table for them. You
would start with assessing whoyou're serving, not every
organization is by definition ofservice entity. When you
mentioned Salesforce, you stillserve your employees. And if you
don't serve your employees,you're not going to hit
yourself. And if there's any wayanybody within recovery story
can tell you this, sometimesaddiction can get in the way of
(16:26):
them being successful in theirroles. There's accreditation, we
actually offer it, it's calledJump and it's Jordan universal
measures and practices, youwould start with the the
organizational Foundation. And Isay organizational Foundation,
because if you start somethingand you don't have the right
foundations in place, then eventhough you mean well, you won't
end well. A lot of times, unlessyou just have the internal
(16:48):
capacity to do it, you mighthave to outsource some of that
to get the foundation in place.
But once that foundation is inplace, you start to build your
own peer treatment team, you canget people on the job and get
them certified as peer recoverycoaches, and then you know,
create a community inside ofyour organization. And even if
you didn't go all the way ofgetting them certified, you
(17:10):
certainly can at least create asupport group. And whether
that's virtual or in person orhybrid combination, it's good to
start again with the rightfoundation. But once that
foundation is in place, I feellike that's something that can
be self sustaining by mostorganizations. Our website is
literally www that Jordan peppercompany.com. We also have a
(17:34):
couple of other grant relatedprograms that entities that want
to get people certified, theycan either a become a community
partner of ours, if it'scommunity, or than when we have
grants and things of that naturethat we're using funding, they
don't have to pay out of pocketfor that they can just come in
as a community partner and beincluded in the work that we're
proposing to whatever the entityis that we're getting funding
(17:56):
from.
DeAnn Knighton (17:57):
A big thank you to Dr. Jordan-Alston for the
time she offered us, I asked herto close us up by sharing
information about a project thatis near and dear to her heart.
This is the work she is doingrelated to grief.
Dr. Masica Jordan-Alston (18:11):
I do work in that space because of my
own lived experience. So Iapproach it from the pit of
recovery. My father died in2018. My grandmother who was a
third parent to me died in 2020.
And then in 2021, my god motherdied. And then two months later,
my brother died. And then within12 hours, my grandfather died.
And at the end of that I wantedto drink. So I'm a person with
(18:32):
the lived experience as well. Iwant it to drink and I never
picked up the battle. I starteddocumenting my experiences and
saying, Okay, I was angry, Iwent through all of the
different emotions that peoplego through and grief and loss.
And I wanted to know how tonavigate this as a trained
clinician. And as a peerrecovery coach, I found that a
lot of the stuff that was outthere at work some but it wasn't
what I needed in the moment, Iwas going to crisis, and I
(18:56):
needed some girls help. And so Istarted documenting my journey
from email and I remember afriend of mine her mom died a
few months after my brotherdied. And I got into the parking
lot thinking I was going to beable to support her. And I
hyperventilated in the parkinglot could not breathe. And I
said, Oh, this is Something'sgotta give. And so I documented
all of that me videos and allthat started walking people
(19:18):
through I cried out loud andgave permission for people to
cry. And so I started recordingcrying sessions and I would say
all right, but I'm not to gorunning, go running with me.
I'll put all of that on demandand an animal in the barn and
but I started documenting otherpeople's lived experiences
For more information, pleasevisit our website, sober
(19:42):
positive workplace dot for showup and stay.org This podcast is
written Created and produced byme DM featuring music from the
wickedly talented At hair
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