SPRINGFIELD, Ky. (WDRB) -- The goal of the recovery program at the Crown Recovery Center reaches far beyond sobriety alone. The mission is to provide opportunities for clients post-recovery.
Following the "crisis to career" approach, the Crown Recovery Center aims to find employment for each of its clients following graduation from the program.
"Education is critical to employment, and employment is an important part to your recovery," said John Wilson, CEO of Crown Recovery Center Community. "If someone graduates our program, and they're clean and sober and they want to get back in life and can't find a job, that's obviously a barrier to recovery."
Addiction Recovery Care (ARC) operates the Crown Recovery Center. When leadership recognized that many of its incoming clients had no educational background, it decided to launch a GED program to address the issue.
A partnership with Elizabethtown Community and Technical College immediately caught the attention of clients in recovery. Nineteen men joined the program right away.
Courtesy of Crown Recovery Center
"They're finding time out of their free time," Wilson said. "This is a priority to them."
Several times a week, aside from the responsibilities that come along with the recovery program, men join instructors from ECTC to study and work on completing the GED.
ECTC Adult Education Instructor Jarrod Kirksey said it's rewarding to see the excitement that follows success.
"Whenever one of the students is able to complete the GED and pass it and have that in hand to where they can move forward, that's really what I'm in it for," he said.
Though ECTC provides support, the program wouldn't be possible without the help of former clients like Nigel Sagester, who completed ARC's recovery program at Crown and decided to join the staff. He now helps facilitate the GED classes.
"The guys I've had a chance to work with with the GED program, it really helps them to know that, 'Hey, somebody cares enough about me and about my future to where they're allowing me to spend some of my time here to work on my GED.'"
While Sagester said it's rewarding to help men get an education, he said the responsibility and drive helps him stay on the right path.
"For most of my life, I wasn't making a positive impact on anybody around me," he said. "And now I can see I have something to give back. I can help people."
Already, one man has completed the program and passed the GED test. It's thanks to other former clients, one who just graduated the recovery program, who help men in the program study and learn when ECTC instructors aren't on campus.
"All it takes is one test, one time, and they see that they can do something and they get excited about it," said James Avery, a former client helping teach the men on nights and weekends. "They want to do another one and another one. Then before you know it, they're studying with us every day until they take the full test."
Education is becoming a priority at Crown Recovery Center. Administrators know it's a crucial step in preventing the men from falling back into the grips of addiction.
"You can see the hope in their faces and the optimism, because they know that now that they're clean and sober, now they're getting that GED, that they're going to make a difference," Wilson said.
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