Ohio START Offers Hope for Recovery
“One addict helping another is without parallel,” says Ashley Mock. She understands how hard the road to sobriety can be because she’s walked it herself. She now uses her experience to help others as the family peer mentor with Portage County’s Ohio START program, a collaborative effort with Coleman Health Services. START stands for Sobriety, Treatment and Reducing Trauma. Portage County launched the children services led initiative in October 2020 and has seen promising results.
One participant, Nicole, is thriving with the supports START offers. Families who voluntarily enter the program are partnered with the family peer mentor and a caseworker who visit with them at least once a week. Services are wrapped around the family to get them into recovery and begin the healing process as quickly as possible.
Children Services Supervisor Kaylyn Kane is shown, above, with from left, Coleman's Chief of Residential Services Chad Dye, Caseworker Alexis Szemenyei, and Family Peer Mentor Ashley Mock.
Nicole has completed IOP (Intensive Outpatient Treatment) and has become active in the recovery community. She’s working to regain custody of her five children, ages 1 through 16. The father of one of Nicole’s daughter’s is also involved in START but has had a more difficult time remaining sober. Ashley visits him regularly in the Portage County jail. “Sometimes, for people like us, [jail] becomes comfortable and we know we’re safe,” she said. “A question I ask is not why the drugs, but why the pain? Because drugs are not the problem. They are their solution to a problem that already existed.” The father was doing well and even had a successful visit with his 3-year old daughter who he had not seen in years. But a few missteps and he lost his place at an intensive outpatient treatment program and ended up back in jail until next March. Ashley says one of his challenges is learning how to feel safe and comfortable outside an institution.
Her experience has taught her that recovery takes time and every person’s path is unique. The people she helps know she’s there to support their sobriety. “I start to see the light come back on in their eyes, see them smile, laugh; feelings that you’re incapable of when you’re in addiction. It’s a breath of fresh air to be able to know somebody got to the other side of this.”