Advocacy

Advocacy

DC Recovery has supported or is supporting several advocacy efforts:

• Ban the Box - a nationwide effort to move questions about criminal history away from the front page of employment applications, where it may trigger prejudices before the applicant's full history can be known. Coupled with this is DC Recovery's work with the Returning Citizens, or Reentry Movement and its efforts to get human rights laws applied to those who have completed their sentences. DC Recovery has been successful in working with others in removing "the Box" from applications for DC government employment. Work continues to build a base of support to extend the Ban to private sector employment as well.

• A Dime a Drink - Washington DC has the highest rate of alcohol and drug problems in the country, and the second-worst treatment gap. DC Recovery is working to close the gap and reduce the number of people - now one in eight residents over the age of 12 - with alcohol and drug problems. DC Recovery 's  mission is to reform the treatment and recovery system by extending it (early intervention and on-going recovery support) and integrating it into the mainstream public health and human services system. See AlcoholTax for more information.

• Best Practices - DC Recovery continues to advocate for adoption of the very best approaches to encouraging and sustaining recovery, including Screening and Brief Intervention with Referral to Treatment, social marketing, and a Community Reinforcement Approach including recovery support and recovery coaching.

• Parity and increased coverage for recovery services - DC Recovery successfully lobbied to the the "alcohol exclusion clause" removed from standard insurance policies in DC that denied coverage for any injuries sustained while under the influence of alcohol. This had led medical service suppliers to ignore any co-occuring alcohol problems, which meant they did not get treated and additional injuries often resulted. DC Recovery also supports efforts to get Alcohol and Other Drug Disorder (AODD) services included under the Affordable Care Act and to assure that they are offered at "parity" with other services under existing insurance plans. See www.ParityPartners.net for more information.