Rise Recovery

For over 40 years, Rise Recovery has been helping teens, young adults and families overcome the effects of drugs and alcohol and partnering with the community in education and prevention. With a growing community need for accessible youth and family recovery services, Rise Recovery has met that need by offering support groups, recovery mentoring, counseling, prevention education, and longstanding partnerships with public schools, Child Protective Services and Juvenile Probation. While addiction treatment facilities average in the thousands of dollars or put up barriers to care such as insurance or income eligibility requirements, Rise Recovery has the distinction of being the only nonprofit offering unrestricted recovery services at no charge to youth, young adults and families in the Greater San Antonio community.
The continued positive impact being made in individuals’ lives is evident by monthly outcome reports, which demonstrate positive changes in clients’ behaviors at the 30- day, 60-day, 90-day and one-year mark. Additionally, the average length of a client’s commitment to a recovery program is 30 to 90 days whereas Rise Recovery clients typically participate for a full year.

Rise Recovery's core goal is meet the needs of the entire family impacted by drugs and/or alcohol. Our aim is to provide open-ended, family-oriented care to the most vulnerable and under served in San Antonio. Built on an evidence-based model of peer-to-peer intervention and family system engagement, all family members have access to counseling, peer support, leadership development, sober social activities, and activity centers, all at no charge to them. Those served by our programs cut across a spectrum of San Antonio's population: youth, families, low-income households, single parent households, and minorities. Our program aims to break the cycle of social ills in the greater San Antonio community, strategically and compassionately, one family at a time.

We are pleased to introduce you to Rise Recovery’s 2020-2024 Strategic Plan – a bold
and clear plan that outlines where we’re going and how we’ll get there. We envision an always accessible community filled with strength, hope, and love in which all can reach our full potential, finding joy and purpose in our sustained recovery. Our vision includes:
• Setting the national standard for participants in sustained recovery
• Striving to eliminate barriers to recovery and increase equitable access to care
• Reaching more families year in and year out
• Nationally recognized Peer-recovery model with accredited Recovery High School
• Established partnerships with every high school in San Antonio
• A key point of civic pride; the average family says, “we’re really lucky to have Rise
Recovery in our city.”
Our Strategic Objectives for 2021-2024:
1. Respond, recover, and retool to emerge stronger.
• Rise Recovery Charlie Naylor Campus on track to open by 2022.
• Successful launch of recovery high school by August 2021.
• Align on how to measure and report on core outputs and outcomes.
• Deliver bi-monthly outputs and outcomes reports to the Board.
• Serve 1500 direct participants in FY2021.
2. Be a national leader in peer-based recovery.
• 80% of participants are engaged in sustained recovery annually*.
• Present at 3 conferences reaching a national audience.
• Earn formal accreditation from Association of Recovery High Schools.
• Implement pilot consulting service to support other organizations implementing the peer-based recovery model.
• Support holistic recovery by adding new services for direct participants.
*Sustained at least 6 consecutive months of sobriety, asked at 12m marker
3. Expand our impact to reach more people.
• Serve 2,000 unduplicated, direct-service participants annually by 2024.
• Serve 1,000 unique family members annually by 2024.
• Increase awareness in San Antonio from 8% to 50% by 2024.
• Participant Net Promoter Score of 30 or higher in 2024.
• Establish partnerships with 10 school districts or charter networks.
• Grow enrollment at the Recovery HS to 50 students by 2024.
4. Continue a path toward financial sustainability.
• 20% of revenue is Earned by 2024.
• Build an Operating Reserve of 6 months Operating Expenses by 2024.
• Triple the number of individual donors by 2024 to 900 annually.
• Generate 10 planned gifts by 2024.
5. Build a thriving organizational culture.
• Increase the number of employees engaged from 40% to 60%.
• Meet/Exceed annual Board performance Scorecard results as reported quarterly in the Board Performance Scorecard.
• Staff compensation at or above market rate levels and distributing performance-based pay increases by 2022.
• High-performing leadership team as evidenced by meeting/exceeding annual goals.
• Disciplined execution and revisiting of the Strategic Plan by running on EOS - includes annual, quarterly and weekly planning rhythms through 2024.

To resolve the social ills related to substance use issues in our community, it is critical to offer the services that will most likely lead to lasting success and eliminate the barriers that prevent families from seeking help. In the last decade, the peer-to-peer recovery model which is foundational to Rise Recovery, became a focus of health research and is, today, considered an evidence-based practice for strengthening wellness and recovery. In our program, 100% of the peer recovery specialist staff are in recovery themselves, 90% having graduated from our youth program before joining the Rise Recovery team. Youth leadership, especially from youth in long-term recovery, is a critical ingredient to motivating other youth to consider abstinence. As such, we encourage our youth program participants to guide discussion topics, develop program activities and support their peers.

In the next 4-5 years, we envision setting the national standard for people in sustained recovery; striving to eliminate barriers and increase equitable access to care; and becoming a nationally recognized peer recovery model. Research consistently shows that the change process is faster and more powerful when a peer to peer model is employed. At Rise Recovery, 100% of our peer recovery staff are men and women who are in long term recovery from addiction. Many are former clients of Rise Recovery who experienced a life transformation and now wish to give back to others in need of support.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, LGBTQ+ youth are nearly twice as likely to use drugs and alcohol due to higher risk factors for this segment of the population. We support LGBTQ+ participants by addressing them by the name they give, not by public record. When any one visits Rise Recovery, there are no barriers whatsoever and absolutely no shame in walking through our doors…no matter what.

At Rise Recovery, we know, engaging family members of those who are struggling with substances is essential to a successful and long-lasting path to recovery. When the family is involved, recovery chances increase by 80%. Rise Recovery focuses on creating a supportive family system to prevent relapse and create a healthy home environment.

We strive to not only continue to invest in our delivery of peer-led substance use recovery and prevention and education services to youth, adults, and families, but to be intentional in serving every person who walks through our doors or calls us in desperate need of care. It is our continued commitment not to charge families seeking services for their loved ones due to the immense lack of available resources for this high-risk population. By offering a no-barrier path to recovery, our clients can finally realize there is hope for an improved quality of life as productive, contributing and healthy members of our community. We are committed to distinguishing ourselves as the go-to resource for substance use prevention, education and recovery.

Rise Recovery continues to strengthen and improve operations, while increasing the scope of services and the depth of such delivery to San Antonio and Bexar County.

We continue to offer the following programs for drug and alcohol recovery: Youth Peer Recovery Support, Young Adult Peer Recovery Support, Adult Peer Recovery Support, Family Member Support, Sibling & Children Support, and Community Outreach & Education. This includes our presence in local school districts who partner with us in providing on-site addiction prevention education, intervention and support. We also provide our community with a 24/7 Recovery Helpline, 210-SAY-CARE, to ensure that those in need are provided guidance and support in finding the right resource for their specific substance use issue need. This United Way supported partnership initiative ensures that our organizations will continue to strive to save lives and change the paradigm of drug and alcohol recovery for years to come.

In 2021, we launched our telehealth program, Rise Clean Link, in partnership with Be Well, Texas, which serves eleven South Texas counties, an area greatly in need of substance use recovery support services. Our no cost virtual services include peer counseling, support groups, prevention education, social activities and treatment navigation.

Rise Inspire Academy is San Antonio's first high school for students seeking recovery from drugs and alcohol. Our first official graduating class opened its doors in Fall 2021. This innovative recovery high school is designed to provide a high-quality education and recovery-oriented student life for high school-aged youth seeking sobriety from drugs and alcohol.

We currently provide recovery services to youth across nine school districts in Bexar County, three of which comprise 98%, 97% and 97% Hispanic students (Harlandale ISD, South San ISD and Edgewood ISD, respectively). By engaging prevention education and recovery intervention in schools, we prevent the school-to-prison pipeline from removing these youth from their futures. Our presence in school districts allows for anyone experiencing negative consequences as a result of drugs and/or alcohol to gain insight into their use, access a peer network of support, and receive enrichment, resource navigation and long-term support for their recovery journey.

In 2022, the Rise Recovery Charlie Naylor Campus will open its doors. Our new two-acre campus will be a central space to serve and accommodate our participants and community in a safe, restorative environment. Our goal is that our clients will experience an improved quality of life and learn skills and acquire resources to be productive, contributing and healthy members of their communities. That is demonstrated through improved outcomes evaluation to clients, improvement in efficiency of service delivery and customer service, and an increased effective response to community need.