The national voice for recovery stands at a crossroads
The national advocacy and recovery community organization Faces & Voices of Recovery, which this year celebrated its 25th anniversary, is in the midst of personnel changes and an organizational merger, with sources telling Addiction Professional that the loss of its former executive director Pat Taylor has been a bruising one.
Taylor, who resigned abruptly in February, had led the grassroots organization to the top circles of power in the policy-making arena. She was always there to say, “What about people in recovery or seeking recovery from addiction?” Now, it’s unclear who from Faces & Voices will be in Washington to raise that question.
Back in October, Faces & Voices board chair Richard Buckman sent out an announcement by e-mail saying that the organization's merger with Young People in Recovery (YPR), which had been announced in September, would provide renewed energy for the recovery movement. Mike DeAgro, former chairman of the YPR board and co-chair of the merged organization, said in that communication, “By joining forces, Faces & Voices of Recovery and YPR can unite separate organizations into a single, stronger, national voice that can advocate for the needs of millions of people, of all ages, who need support while seeking or in continued recovery.”
On a day-to-day basis, each group will retain its distinct identity and separate branding, according to Buckman’s e-mail. Still remaining unique to Faces & Voices will be the Association of Recovery Community Organizations (ARCO), the Executive Directors Leadership Academy, recovery community messaging, and the online platform for the film “The Anonymous People.” The merger will improve the ability to reach a wider audience, according to the e-mail.
Riley’s voice
Justin Luke Riley, the 26-year-old president and CEO of YPR, served on the board of Faces & Voices for five years (he resigned when the merger talks began). He stresses that there is no “hostile takeover,” and that the opposite is true: “We have willingly proposed that our staff, our team, our financial assets, our board, that everything legally and technically speaking comes underneath Faces & Voices,” Riley says. “We don’t want to shut them down and take over. Young people in recovery exist because of Faces & Voices.”
But he adds that the next step of the merger needs to take place, with an executive director or directors needing to be named. Reached at his home base in Denver, Riley says he is uncomfortable discussing the issues of the merger, but acknowledges that “there are more and more people asking, ‘What’s going on?’”
Loss of Taylor
“Pat left quite a void,” says Buckman. “She was a giant in our community and largely responsible for moving Faces & Voices out there to become a household name.” When director of programs Tom Hill left the organization as well, returning to the Altarum Institute after three years as a powerhouse at Faces and Voices, “We were left with a huge gap, not only in experience and institutional knowledge,” Buckman says. “They’re both very solid people with glowing reputations, and I don’t think you can replace either one of them—you just find people with comparable skill sets and hope they can step in.”
Taylor, who had gone to Faces & Voices from the activist Center for Science in the Public Interest, sat in at important meetings at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and elsewhere in the halls of power in Washington. The Faces & Voices board never publicly communicated why Taylor left, a failing according to former board member John de Miranda, who shared his observations with Addiction Professional as an outsider. Uppermost is his concern that the organization will founder without Taylor.
“Under Pat’s leadership, Faces & Voices was becoming a major force in the addiction field for the voice of recovery,” says de Miranda. “There was a lot going on, and she made sure that we were at the right tables.”
He adds, “If you looked at SAMHSA, it was clear that Faces & Voices had gone from being just a vision to a major network of people really trying to change the conversation. “Since Pat left, it seems to me that all of that has stopped.”
de Miranda, formerly co-chair of Faces & Voices' public policy committee, says Taylor did a lot of work “behind the scenes that wouldn’t necessarily end up in a press release.” Now, he is afraid that Faces & Voices “is devolving into a trade organization for the recovery community organizations.”
de Miranda still sits on the public policy committee as an ex-officio member, and says that of the four public policy conference calls that have been held since Taylor left, none dealt with substantial issues.
Taylor, who declined to be interviewed for this article, resigned on Feb. 28 of this year. Steve Gumbley, formerly Faces & Voices' board chair and director of the Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) housed at Brown University, worked together with Hill to manage the organization's administrative functions and then did that on his own as volunteer CEO after Hill left. Gumbley retired in August, and Faces & Voices remains without an executive director.
SAMHSA’s role
Yvette Torres, director of consumer affairs at SAMHSA and the chief liaison for many national recovery activities, says YPR and Faces & Voices have a purchase order that runs from September 2014 to September 2015 to assess homeless programs and to conduct webinars on that subject. “They need to determine which entity of their organization is going to carry out the work,” Torres says. “We have been dealing with a troika of individuals, and in the period of transition, as they look for an executive director.”
She adds, “Our concern as a federal entity is quite frankly that every single dollar is spent according to the purchase order goals and objective and intent, and to that extent we are monitoring them very closely to make sure that the work is consistent with the intended goals of the project.” One of the webinars had to be canceled because of technical difficulties, but it has already been rescheduled, Torres says.
SAMHSA stopped giving money for Recovery Month rallies five years ago, but still indirectly supports activities, says Torres. “But we need a lot more people to come into our field,” she adds, citing an aging workforce. “About 65 percent of us will be gone in five years.”
Having active young people in recovery is essential because of this, says Torres. “There is a transition from the older generation of the recovery movement to the new generation of the recovery movement,” she says.
There is a generational issue in terms of anonymity as well—not between YPR and Faces & Voices per se, but in general. Older people are more likely to adhere to the anonymity tradition of AA, while younger people are more upfront about their recovery.
“We say, ‘This is my lifestyle; it’s not just an adjective for describing me,’” Riley says of young people's perspective on recovery. There is no patience for stigma, which many young people view as a byproduct of anonymity. “You get us in an elevator, you’re going to know we’re in recovery; why would we not want to tell you we’re in recovery?” says Riley. “These young people are not embarrassed. They say, ‘Stigma? That’s crap!’”
There are nearly 100 ARCO member organizations around the country and 31 YPR chapters. YPR first formed about a year ago.
Bright spot: legislation
One issue that the grassroots can rally around is legislation, as it did for the federal parity law. Faces & Voices is setting up a Dec. 3 call-in day to members of Congress to voice support for the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act (CARA), sponsored by U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio). The proposed legislation, currently in the Senate Judiciary Committee, would provide a broad array of services, including for treatment and recovery, to address the prescription opioid and heroin epidemic.
This was the kind of issue at which Taylor excelled, observers say. Under her leadership, Faces & Voices constantly cultivated the grassroots through e-mails and newsletters, and the organization proved very important to passage of the Wellstone-Domenici bill, which eventually became the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. Carol McDaid, principal with Washington, D.C. lobbying firm Capitol Decisions, is spearheading the call-in mobilization, says de Miranda.
Buckman hopes that CARA, with its support for recovery community organizations, will pass. “Politically, we don’t know if the stars are aligned,” he says. “This will be a true test of our organization.”
Work with SAMHSA
When SAMHSA’s definition of recovery in late 2012 was released, it encompassed both mental illness and addiction, blending people in recovery from either disease in one group. Taylor protested vigorously, noting that Faces & Voices had been asked for input but that it was not taken into consideration. Several months later, the definition was revised. But without Taylor’s vigilance, the trend toward blending could continue, warns de Miranda.
One of the “unfortunate byproducts” of the hiatus in leadership is that the voice of people in recovery, as represented by Taylor, appears to have gone silent, says de Miranda. “It’s clear that SAMHSA has been pulling away from Recovery Month, and trying to make it both mental health and substance abuse,” he says. “They keep trying to stick a square peg into a round hole, forcing everything in Recovery Month to be both mental health and substance abuse, and now SAMHSA has no countervailing force.”
That didn’t happen with the federal parity law, partly because of the advocacy of Faces & Voices, McDaid, and the organizations that make up the Parity Implementation Coalition.
Another area where Faces & Voices had a strong message involved the confidentiality of treatment records. McDaid, representing Faces & Voices, spoke in favor of keeping the privacy protections of 42 CFR Part 2, a strong regulation that requires individualized consent from patients before their identity can be disclosed.
Faces & Voices was one of the few organizations in the field to speak out in favor of protecting patients at a SAMHSA listening session in June, joining the Legal Action Center and the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD) in taking this stance. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) did not comment. Neither did the National Council for Behavioral Health, although Mike Lardiere, until recently with the National Council, spoke in favor of weakening the regulation.
Pros and cons of blending
Today, Buckman speaks of possible concessions to the SAMHSA climate of merging addiction and mental health, but also warns of the risks. “Addiction is the focus of our mission and what we do,” he says. “I’m aware of the changes and the climate and the belief systems around behavioral health, and if it’s going to advance the interests of people with addiction, we need to have partnerships with SAMHSA and mental health groups,” he says, adding that Faces and Voices thus far has not been approached about any such partnerships. “We have worked with folks on the mental health side for a long time, recognizing that it’s important that both of these causes get the attention they need.”
On the other hand, Buckman says joining forces with mental health advocates can be helpful to people with mental illness, but not necessarily to people with addictions. He relates the story of Timothy’s Law in New York state with bitterness. When the campaign for the law, which strengthened insurance protections for people with mental illness, was under way in New York, only two addiction organizations were part of the coalition, compared to 26 mental health organizations. The law originally was supposed to protect people with addiction as well, says Buckman. “But when Timothy’s law got passed, they made a deal, and cut out the coverage for addiction,” he says. “When push came to shove, we got kicked out.”
Strong future
Recovery researcher Alexandre Laudet, PhD, has been collaborating with Faces & Voices of Recovery for many years as its informal scientific adviser. “For the past decade, Faces & Voices has singlehandedly been at the forefront of the recovery movement,” Laudet says. The organization is highly respected and engaged with public and private agencies to disseminate its message and achieve its mission, she says.
“I credit the organization and its staff with fostering the exponential growth the nation is experiencing in terms of advocacy, training and awareness of the recovery community and its issues,” Laudet says.
Laudet conducted the first national Life in Recovery Survey with Faces & Voices last year, resulting in the documentation of the benefits of sustained recovery to individuals and to public health and the economy, she says. The merger with YPR “will extend the reach of Faces & Voices,” says Laudet.
Buckman emphasizes the need for funding. He says that the A&E television network supported Recovery Month activities in the past, amounting to “several hundred thousand dollars” over the years. Now, the recovery community itself needs to start generating funds, he says. “To some extent, that includes earmarking our own personal contributions.”
What is not changed is the number of people in recovery—23 million, the huge grassroots that launched Faces & Voices from a tiny organization 25 years ago to a major stakeholder. There are more than 20 million more individuals who still need to find their way to that recovery, says Buckman.
“The Anonymous People” is seen as a vehicle for communicating the message of Faces & Voices, he says. For many, one of the barriers to advocacy has been the dogma of anonymity. “The more we can put our own face and voice in recovery from addiction, the more we can normalize this,” says Buckman, who is in long-term recovery. “We need to learn to advocate and get out there. Historically we’ve been a silent presence with no voice.”
