EP12 Laura Goode, CEO & Co-founder, Ignite Recovery

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[00:00:02] Chris Langley: Hi. Welcome to the Addiction Recovery Place the podcast championing addiction treatment specialists around the world. I'm your host Chris Langley, and today I'm pleased to introduce today's guest Laura Good who is the CEO and Co-founder of Ignite Recovery, which is located in Fall River, Massachusetts Welcome to the Addiction Recovery Place Podcast Laura.

Thanks for joining us

[00:00:23] Laura Goode: Thank you, Chris. Hi. Thanks for having me.

It's actually Fall River, but, we won't hold you to it. You're British.

[00:00:30] Chris Langley: I thought I said that. I'm very sorry. very sorry Fall River, Massachusetts. So before

we start today's podcast, Laura, I'd just like to read this paragraph, which I took from your website, which I think everyone should hear Ignite Recovery's goal is to wholly support individuals in their journey to find their pathway of recovery. Our approach is meeting individuals exactly where they are at, no matter what stage of change they're at on their recovery. That's a really nice piece. I just wanted to read that. Laura, please tell us about yourself and your role at, at Ignite Recovery. I

[00:01:07] Laura Goode: myself and my role at Ignite Recovery. Ignite Recovery was, born, in the pandemic. We, myself and, and a friend of mine decided to, step out on our own, and, create, an organization that, that treated people the way that we thought people should be treated and gave opportunities to employees that, that were, good and, fulfilling and, we, to be frank, we just thought we could do it better than our boss, and it turns out we were right.

[00:01:55] Chris Langley: love it.

doing before you started this Laura?

[00:01:59] Laura Goode: So I have worked in a variety of like administrative settings, prior to this, I was a program director for a recovery community organization, that was operated, with a grant through SAMHSA, so it was more like a drop in, recovery center. And then prior to that, I used to work at a toxicology lab, for about 5 years. So I've done a little bit of everything and, I like to jump in and, ask good questions and, get things done.

[00:02:41] Chris Langley: Absolutely. It certainly sounds that if you've started, this service yourself, that's quite incredible. So big congratulations on that. So, what services and programs do you provide your community?

[00:02:54] Laura Goode: So we focus on, recovery support services. So mainly, recovery coaching, which I know isn't a thing, necessarily everywhere. But recovery coaching, which is, a service that we provide to individuals, our coaches all have lived experience. They're all in recovery themselves. and, we support people. They identify their, their goals, and we try to connect them to the resources within the community, that they identify that they need.

And then we also offer recovery support navigator services, which is a little bit more of a case management role, and they help individuals, get through the barriers that people have when they're trying to achieve recovery, or attain recovery, and maintain recovery things like basic needs, like homelessness, food insecurity, legal issues, we, bring people to court and kind of, clear up warrants and things like that.

So all the things that, are really sometimes the biggest stressors when you're getting into recovery. We try to, help them walk through that so they don't have to do it alone.

[00:04:20] Chris Langley: So you help people in the court process as well.

[00:04:23] Laura Goode: Yes, we're not lawyers, but

we'll show up with you and, Cheer you on. And,

make sure you get to your court dates and especially when people are getting into treatment. Sometimes they're all, they may be from a different area and they land in treatment in a different part of the state because, the treatment centers aren't everywhere.

They're not in every city on every corner. Unfortunately. So

sometimes they'll have, some pending legal issues in a whole different part of the state. So to try to navigate, public transportation to get to a court date for 8:30 or nine o'clock, 60 miles away, is a, can be, intimidating.

So, yeah, so that's, some of the things that we do. And then we also offer, an outpatient substance use counseling. via telehealth and in office. with licensed, masters level clinicians, and then we're also going to be offering day treatment, in the near future, which is, like a extended, clinical outpatient, three to five days a week.

so for people that, are getting out of treatment, can't quite stay inpatient still, but still need the support and, need to fill their days up so that they make the right decisions.

[00:05:54] Chris Langley: Absolutely. So, how's your service funded?

[00:06:00] Laura Goode: So we live in the great state of Massachusetts, which, which is, our Medicaid program pays for these services through insurance. So we bill insurance. And, luckily, our, state government plans, pay for these services because I know that there is, not every state that will reimburse for these services, so I feel like we're really ahead of the game and, it's really proven to, it's not like when I got clean 11 years ago, it was, they didn't have all these services.

So I feel like we are definitely, making, positive changes in the right direction.

[00:06:53] Chris Langley: Absolutely. It sounds like you're doing a very wide range of services. It's, you're, helping people with their lives and you're also helping people with their addictions, which is the whole package, basically. Absolutely.

that's that's that's pretty amazing stuff.

thank you. Thank you for that. So tell us about your team. how many people have you working at your service?

[00:07:18] Laura Goode: Right now we have eight people. we have two clinicians, my Office Manager, who is like my brain, she keeps us, she's the glue that kind of holds us together.

And, and five, right? Yeah. And five, coaches and RSNs. Some people are a coach and an RSN, some are just Recovery Coaches, but, we have five people that are out in the field, doing the work every day.

[00:07:52] Chris Langley: So it sounds got a pretty tight team there. So

[00:07:56] Laura Goode: We do. It's a great, we have a great, team,

me, and everyone that, that's here is, we really, try to work together and it's, sometimes, it takes a lot of effort to keep the communication going and, to be sharing resources and staying on the same page, but, I'm really grateful for the team that really helps us put this all together because, without them, I can sit here and push papers all day long, but it's not going to, do the community any good without them.

[00:08:34] Chris Langley: Excellent, excellent stuff. So Laura, what are, the, common addictions that you've, that you help over at your service? What are the things you see most?

[00:08:44] Laura Goode: fentanyl.

it's not, really heroin anymore. it's

fentanyl and that seems to be present in, not just, what people think, they're purchasing like heroin or fentanyl. it's often present in the, the coke and the crack that people are getting to, people that never thought that they had any interest in an opiate or, get going into treatment and finding out that they, test positive for fentanyl.

a lot of that, and then, we're starting to see more crystal meth in this area. slowly than we ever had before, it seems like that was a, an over that side of the country issue for a long time.

and now it's, becoming, our own issue as well. So

[00:09:40] Chris Langley: So you've seen that change over the last few years, have you around, around crystal meth?

[00:09:44] Laura Goode: Yes, yeah, there's been a lot more people that, that seems to, have been using that, a little bit, so I'm sure it can get worse, knock on wood, but, but that seems to be, and then we also have a lot of people that drink, a lot of people that drink alcohol, that's, a low key, I, feel like people sleep on the insidiousness of, that substance, that can really, really tear people's lives up and kill them really.

So that seems to be the, the most of, but we really try to focus on not what people are, using when they come to us. We identify, if they want to stop or how they want to stop and what that looks like for them, and really replacing the bad stuff with the good things in life and

really trying to identify people's, what we call recovery capital.

everyone in their life, when they're entering recovery, has a different, set of strengths and weaknesses and, We try to identify the things that, people wanna live for really. some people have, great families that they're tired of, disappointing and some people have, a career that they don't wanna throw away entirely.

so that's really what we try to focus on, once we get the drugs out of the way,

[00:11:21] Chris Langley: So you're able to test for fentanyl.

[00:11:24] Laura Goode: we actually. Don't test. We don't do any drug testing here. It's not really, we rely on our clients own reports and you know what they tell us so sometimes, it'll be like, "oh I need you know I need to get a job and I need you know to get a Psychiatrist and I need all these things" and it seems as though it may be like a Problem using drugs.

but we just work with people and, take what they identify as their problems and try to, and try to get to the other side. So we don't, do any, drug testing. We're not like punitive in any way. If you relapse or, we have a high threshold for, the people that we'll work with.

We, don't, or low threshold rather. We don't if you're continuing to use and you go to detox, a hundred times in a year, we'll take you the hundred and first time, as long as you don't put, you're not threatening and, don't put us in any danger, we're here to keep trying with people.

And that really, does as people go through different treatment facilities and travel around the state in their journey to try to find recovery, we're able to stay with them and build that rapport so that, when, the stuff hits the fan, we're able to, answer the phone and try to, we're like that lifeline, like that one

call,

[00:13:18] Chris Langley: You're a constant support for you, for your clients

for the longterm. I love that. I absolutely love that. Thank you for explaining that to me, Laura. I just wanted to ask since, your state became a legal marijuana state, have you seen any uptake in people accessing your service for, this? Is it affected drug services at all?

[00:13:43] Laura Goode: I guess the one piece that seems to

present itself is sometimes people, decide that they are able to, just smoke marijuana and that's, their pathway, but, I have seen and we have seen that sometimes, It doesn't work just like any pathway, right? and also we've run into providers where, you know, some of the, because we connect people to different nurse practitioners and PCPs and things within the community

and, sometimes if a client is looking for just like a card, a provider won't necessarily be one that is willing to give one because it's not, legal federally. I've seen that a few times.

[00:14:49] Chris Langley: Okay.

[00:14:50] Laura Goode: we just try to navigate that the best that we can.

[00:14:54] Chris Langley: Excellent. Excellent. Good stuff. so how do people come to access your services and where do you receive most of your referrals from?

[00:15:02] Laura Goode: I would say we get, A lot of our referrals from, other clients that talk about the services that they receive from Ignite Recovery, to the people that they're around. a lot of times that, when people are in treatment, they'll be talking about, the problems, the common problems that they face.

And, they may say, "Oh, my coach at Ignite Recovery helped me do this, and this." So we do get a lot of referrals that way. and then other, we really try To build and maintain good relationships with other providers within the community. I'm really big on, a recovery oriented system of care and we're just one small piece and an entire system that supports the individuals that we serve to achieve and maintain recovery.

So detoxes and, methadone treatment centers and, different types of even other, agencies that offer coaching and similar services. I really try to, maintain good relationships with those other organizations, because it's not, this isn't something that one agency is going to be able to solve, on their own.

and I think that, sometimes it seems as though

our, different places can lose sight of that and I really want to try to, we're not always the best fit for, for everyone, but sometimes, we are exactly the right fit and, people in the community know who to call.

[00:16:48] Chris Langley: Yeah. So it's all about networking with other

agencies and joint working. I love that. I think that's fantastic. I noticed on your website, Laura, that you have a recovery coach program. Can you explain some detail about this, how it works and how it successfully assists people within their own recovery?

[00:17:06] Laura Goode: It, works is, pretty much that's the first service that we'll start with, an individual. I talked about having a low threshold and

that's, really, it gives us a,

good range of, we're able to, engage with people as little or as much as they want. and sometimes people, don't really want to be pushed per se but sometimes people do just want to know that there's somebody out there that does care if they're using or does care, when they, get their kids back and, all those milestones.

As I said, there's a training requirements that are needed for, within the state. So everyone goes through those trainings. It's a Five Day Recovery Coach Academy as well as an Ethical Considerations Training for recovery coaches, and everyone that we, that we hire here has done those and is working on, the remainder of the required trainings in order to get their certification.

and then, for, as far as the coaches, we, we do a lot of supervisions because the, so much work is done within the community and, it's, we really try to keep ourselves connected as a team so that, so that nobody feels like they're out there doing the work, without the support. I

don't want anyone to, we all represent a team, myself included, We don't need to be out there doing, renegade stuff on behalf of Ignite Recovery.

[00:19:14] Chris Langley: Yep.

[00:19:15] Laura Goode: Because it is hard work and it's taxing and, even myself, sometimes I'll find myself, with people that we work with or have been working with for a long time, I may, find myself wanting to do something a little bit

different or a little bit more for them, which is why I need to stay connected to, my team and my, Clinical Director to really support each other within, the effort that we're putting out there for our clients.

[00:19:44] Chris Langley: Wonderful. Wonderful stuff. Last couple of questions, Laura. through these podcasts, I've discovered many different opinions around harm reduction. Can you tell us your, ideal explanation of harm reduction and what you've, what you think this is?

[00:20:01] Laura Goode: I've been in and around recovery for a long time myself. And, I have a personal pathway that, has, become true to me in my life. it's very different than, What I believe when I get to the office, as a whole, right? So many people are dying that at this point, I really feel like harm reduction is just keeping people alive, in different, in different ways.

So really all of the treatment and recovery efforts is harm reduction, right? that's you know, I don't I'm not clinical. I don't have any letters behind my name all of my experiences, you know hard won and so don't you know, this is

not a scientific whatever but

but really I just think that Like I said, the recovery oriented system of care, right?

it takes, it takes all the, Narcan in the community to keep people alive. It takes,

it takes the, the, the harm reduction kits, the, the bleach and, and syringes and, it takes all that stuff to keep somebody alive long enough to be, the mom that they can be and the, in the, person that they can be in the person in the community that they can be, myself included.

it's, I, put some miles on myself, out there and and if it weren't for those community, those, services that kept me, alive and safe and, the wet shelters and the, outreach efforts and the, whatever else, Ignite Recovery wouldn't exist.

So I, I just try to never count anyone out and, just hope and pray that. that people get to achieve recovery for at

least one day, whatever that looks like for them.

[00:22:25] Chris Langley: Yeah, one day at a time and keep keeping your clients alive. That's pretty much it. I love it. Absolutely love it. Thank you. Thank you for that, Laura. Have you any future plans for Ignite Recovery at all? What's going to happen in the future for you guys?

[00:22:42] Laura Goode: So like I had mentioned, we, we did just get, day treatment added to our license,so in the near future, we, plan to be offering those services, as another kind of caveat of the things that we offer, I think we'll probably always be, focused on, the peer supports that we have really, built, this company on really, those, principles, like I said, we have a lot of really great relationships with different, organizations, and treatment centers and, people within different communities throughout the state, so

I'm sure we will add locations. At this point it's up in the air, but, but I'm gonna allow the need to present itself, before we, we commit to, expanding to any one particular

area. and also, it really. so much of what we do and what we can offer depends on the staff that we have available.

And really, I'm just trying to focus on pouring into our staff and, giving them all the support that they need to do the best job that they can. and then, the rest is up to God and whichever direction we go, we'll show up and do the best we can.

[00:24:26] Chris Langley: Wonderful, stuff. Where could people find you, Laura? Online or

[00:24:33] Laura Goode: So we, we have a Facebook, Ignite Recovery. our, website is ignitemyrecovery.com kind of catchy. We could, people could submit referrals, that's, electronically secure right on the website. And, we're here on Bedford Street in Fall River, 672 Bedford Street.

But we're, around.

[00:25:00] Chris Langley: Excellent. Excellent. Thank you for that is there anything I've forgotten to mention or is there anything you'd like to add for our audience today Laura?

[00:25:10] Laura Goode: I don't, not that I can think of. I'll probably think of something as soon as we, we

end this. But,

[00:25:16] Chris Langley: okay okay. on that note Laura, thank you very much for your time I know you're incredibly busy and I really appreciated you coming on to talk to me today And we look forward to hearing about your future journey later on but thank you very much Indeed much appreciated.

[00:25:31] Laura Goode: Thank you so much, Chris.

[00:25:32] Chris Langley: care, cheers.

Do, do, do, do, do.