Good evening Unity community,
It has been a challenging two weeks here in Philadelphia and around the world, especially as many of you have traversed challenges facing work, childcare, school, and your personal recovery. We have witnessed amazing things through our online all recovery meetings, which have welcomed people from all 50 states and 22 different countries over the last two weeks. We have had the opportunity to share some of our digital recovery support service best practices and policies with many of you, and are always happy to be of service in any way that we can.
As we have continued to monitor the public health emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew that we may be put in a position that would result in an extended closure of our brick and mortar location and face-to-face services. This time has sadly come, and I am announcing that our center will be closed until at least May 1st, 2020.
Our staff and I are all huge supporters of the “Stay Home” movement, and will continue to be so as long as it is in the best interests of our families, our participants, our healthcare partners, and all of you. While extending the closure of the recovery center is an unfortunate fact of life right now, we will of course continue our fully digital engagement strategies during this time. This includes daily all recovery meetings, small group workshops focusing on addressing social determinants of recovery, and offering 1-on-1 peer recovery planning services through our certified peer support specialists. All services continue to be free at this time and can be accessed by requesting them through the contact form on this website, through our peer text line, or via e-mail.
In addition, we will continue suspending our employee sick and paid time off policies to allow for as much time off as needed for any reason. Peer staff will continue to be fully paid and provided benefits, no matter if they are healthy or sick, can find a babysitter or cannot, during this time. We hope this continued commitment to peer workers will be emulated across the recovery support services field.
We look forward to seeing you in the zooms, chatting with you via text and email, and continuing to support recovery the best way we know how – together.
Truly yours,
Robert D. Ashford
Executive Director – Unity Recovery
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