The full and varied life of a Churchill Fellow

Today, Monday 4th October, I talked with Diana Desnoyers, Recovery Oriented Employment Services Coordinator at CCAR (Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery).

Diana is responsible for developing and implementing the ROES programme, (Recovery Oriented Employment Services) for those in recovery. This programme is designed to combine treatment and case management with employment readiness training and recovery support. It offers new approaches for assisting individuals in recovery to become active, useful, members in their community within a structured setting.

Those who benefit most from this programme are individuals that are dedicated to their recovery and are motivated and ready to re-enter the workforce. In other words, those ready to combine the vocational with their recovery.

Diana warned that pushing someone into a job when their recovery isn’t strong is likely to cause them to relapse.

This programme, incidentally, which comprises 8 modules ranging from Financial Basics and Time Management to Common Work Challenges and Employment Support Groups, is soon to be rechristened, Recovery Works, and trainer and trainee manuals will be on sale within 2 months. I’ve already placed my order.

Last Saturday (2nd October), if you remember, I’d been invited out to lunch by a small contingent from the Connecticut Welsh Society (Cymdeithas Gymraeg Connecticut). Susan Davies Sit (originally from Colwyn Bay) collected me from my hotel as promised and I met up with Bob (Illinois) and Nancy Bulgard (nee Johns and from North Wales), Shirley Gilmartin (Aberdare), and Sherry Williams (Llanelli) at The Bottomless Express, where I ate a hearty Beef Fajita. We spent two or more wonderful hours reminiscing about Wales and I was reminded whilst chatting of the last few lines of my father’s strict-metre poem, Yr Hen Fro (The Old District):

Heddiw dir yw fy hiraeth
Am erwau ffridd, am wŷr ffraeth;
Am rin y bobl werinol,
Am nef na ddaw mwy yn ôl.

(Summed up, it means things will never be the same again. Like a Heaven that’ll never return. It also contains the word ‘Hiraeth’ – a deep longing, which Welsh purists say is untranslatable.)

I spent the rest of the sunny afternoon walking the banks of the Connecticut River with Sherry Williams and being shown around some famous Hartford landmarks. I’ve got two more meals to enjoy in the company of these lovely people: one, tomorrow night (Tuesday 5th) when I visit Susan’s home (and I get to hear what Sherry thinks of my book!), and the second, next Saturday, my penultimate day in Hartford, when I get to meet members of Cymdeithas Gymraeg Massachusetts. I won’t be able to fit into my clothes by the time I return to Wales, you’ll see!

Sunday (3rd October) began very early for me. I drove some 40 miles to Deep River, a town with a population of 5000 in Middlesex County, Connecticut, and to the home of Laurie Fresher (CCAR Recovery Community Centre Manager) and Jimmy (or James) DeLano, her partner.

Laurie had warned me that I was likely to click straight away with Jimmy. And she was right! I spend a relaxing and so, so enjoyable day in both their company. We attended the 8am service in St. Joseph’s Church then ate an American breakfast in the local Diner before driving to a nearby meeting of ‘likeminded folk’ where the theme was ‘adversity’ – potentially the greatest creative force in nature. After that, it was onwards to the Mystic Seaport, a museum of America and the Sea situated along the banks of the Mystic River in Mystic, Connecticut. It is notable both for its collection of sailing ships and boats, and for the re-creation of crafts and fabric of an entire 19th century seafaring village. It consists of more than 60 original historic buildings, most of them rare commercial structures moved to the 37-acre site and meticulously restored.

I was particularly impressed by the Amistad, a ship famous because of an onboard revolt by African captives being transported from Havana to Puerto Principe, Cuba. It was a 19th-century two-masted schooner built in the United States, but owned by a Spaniard living in Cuba. The Africans took control of the ship in July 1839 and were captured off the coast of Long Island by the USS Washington of the United States Revenue Cutter Service. The Amistad became a symbol in the movement to abolish slavery. The ship was taken under control by the United States, resulting in a US Supreme Court case (1841) over the status of the Africans, as importation of slaves into the US had been prohibited since 1808.

Incidentally, Shirley Gilmartin, who I met at the Connecticut Welsh Society Saturday lunch and who works in the Mystic Seaport as an actress and performer, had promised to leave me three free tickets at the visitors entrance. And true to her word, there they were waiting for us in my name! Thanks Shirley. I’ll get to thank you in person for your kindness tomorrow night.

The day ended with a juicy sirloin steak at the Steak Loft in Mystic, Connecticut. The perfect end to a perfect day and a perfect weekend!

Today, Monday 4th, I got to record Phil Valentine, Executive Director of CCAR, as he gave me an overview of the services they provide and how they evolved and were developed.

Interestingly, Phil said that he was hesitant, initially, about offering peer recovery support groups as a means of supporting long-term recovery, because he believed people should use existing available resources, such as AA and NA membership. However, he found a need for an “all-recovery group”.

Currently the all-recovery group in Willimantic draws from 30 to 50 people, and the CCAR centre in Hartford draws from 10 to 15 at each meeting. They welcome 12-Step, Christian-based, methadone, medication-assisted, co-occurring, family members, and community members – or, as Phil put it “all non-denominational groups!” But their main purpose is to provide an opportunity for people to come in and to talk about recovery.

Phil described the set-up in a 2007 interview with Bill White as “such a simple concept, it’s brilliant, and it’s helped a lot of people”. I would also add from what I’ve seen that – it works, it’s practical and it’s comparatively cheap from a legislator’s point of view!

He goes on, “We serve a broad spectrum of people, but I think we have a special mission of serving people who don’t feel fully accepted in mainstream AA or NA.

We don’t place judgments on people. We say, “You’re in recovery if you say you are. Is there some way that you think you might be able to improve your recovery, and how can we help you do that?”1

Tomorrow’s another full and busy day and begins with a staff meeting at CCAR at 9am, another visit to Deep River and an invitation to a Rotary Club meeting where I hope to speak about The Living Room Cardiff project. Then I’ve got to rearrange my schedule in Vermont next week because Mark Ames has suggested that I attend a 5 day recovery coach academy at Spofford, New Hampshire. I think it’s a brilliant idea because it’ll give me a much better understanding of what being a Recovery Coach is all about. And, of course, there’s the dinner at Susan’s. But all that’s tomorrow!

What music am I listening to now? The Blower’s Daughter, sung by Damien Rice. Not to my taste really!

And that’s that.

Cysgwch yn dawel pawb. Sleep tight everyone.


1 WHITE, W.L., (2007). Perspectives on Systems Transformation: How Visionary Leaders are Shifting Addiction Treatment towards a Recovery-Oriented System of Care. Illinois: Great Lakes attc.