Today, we are talking about CARES:
The Certified Addiction Recovery Empowerment Specialist Academy was developed by the Georgia Council for Recovery to create a workforce of peers to provide recovery support services to the communities of Georgia. Funded by Georgia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, the CARES Academy is the first of its kind in the country to be Medicaid billable.
Upon completion of the CARES Academy, peers are able to:
- Advocate for recovery for themselves, the peers with whom they work, their recovery community, and for a Recovery Oriented System of Care.
- Run recovery groups using “Partners for Change Outcome Management System”, an evidence-based practice found on the SAMHSA’s “National Registry of Evidence Based Practices and Programs (NREPP)”.
- Conduct individual recovery check-ins by supporting peers in self-directed care and assessing a peer’s ‘recovery capital’ using Motivational Interviewing (also on NREPP) skills to enhance the relationship.
Dawn is a Certified Addiction Recovery Empowerment Specialist (CARES 15 / 2015) working for the Georgia Council for Recovery (GC4R) as an Education and Training Manager, and previously as the Emergency Department Recovery Coach Program Manager, in partnership with Northeast Georgia Health System. Dawn is also a Certified Peer Specialist (CPS) through the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network (2012) and also has a recovery coaching certification through the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (2016).