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Addiction & Recovery: Communities Take Action Efforts Exceed Expectations and Raise Awareness
Published April 1, 2007
As of March 30, 2007, 15,000 people have attended house parties or town hall meetings in 30 cities across the nation to view HBO’s dramatic documentary, Addiction. The Council and PRO-ACT, official coordinators for Southeastern Pennsylvania’s participation in the national Addiction and Recovery: Communities Take Action campaign, launched the effort regionally on March 5th.
Over 500 invited guests attended the documentary’s Philadelphia area premiere at the renowned Prince Music Theater. Community advocates and officials comprised an interactive panel; discussions focused on the need to speak out about addiction to raise awareness that this is an illness faced by individuals and families that warrants consideration equal to that of other health problems.
Communities Take Action is a year-long campaign. It offers opportunities for community groups, schools, faith-based communities and workplaces to develop strategies and use their influence to raise awareness of addiction as the disease process that it is. The goal of this message is to get more people the help they need, which will save lives.
“We get many calls from parents who have a child in the depth of an addiction, desperate for help and feeling overwhelmed and often helpless,” says Marge Hanna, Executive Director of the Bucks County Drug and Alcohol Commission. “While we can offer the hope of recovery and have resources to support this, we also need to get a prevention- and early-intervention message out to the community. This campaign led by The Council and PRO-ACT has the potential to make a big difference by providing tools for Pennsylvania families to assist in prevention and intervention efforts as well as understanding that long term recovery from addiction is possible.”
PRO-ACT/The Council is helping churches, community-based organizations, private citizens, prisons, etc., with arranging viewings of HBO’s DVD series, Addiction and is assisting with technical support for implementing awareness-raising strategies. A two-hour training is available for Communities That Care mobilizers (CTCs) to teach them how to show the series within their communities while managing its scientifically-based central theme: addiction is a treatable brain disease.
PRO-ACT/The Council’s Communities Take Action Partners include: Bucks County Drug and Alcohol Commission, Inc.; City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Mental Retardation Services; Delaware County Office of Behavioral Health; Chester County Department of Drug and Alcohol Services, Commonwealth of PA; Laborers’ Local Health and Safety Fund of Philadelphia and Vicinity; and Montgomery County Mental Health/Mental Retardation/Drug and Alcohol/Behavioral Health Programs.
PRO-ACT is continuing to work with these partners over the summer, hosting town hall meetings, trainings, Addiction-viewing house parties, and making HBO’s 14-DVD series and facilitator’s guides available to each target community throughout the five-county area of Southeastern Pennsylvania. HBO Communities Take Action kits are now available. Individuals and communities can find out how they can get involved and make a difference by contacting Christopher Barford at (215) 345-6644 x3120 or cbarford@bccadd.org.
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