RCS RECOVERY

For the past three years, Residential Care Services, Inc. has been working with Allegheny Health Choices, Inc. and five other local providers to become a Center of Excellence in Recovery. This means that the agency plans to implement the Recovery Model into all levels of service delivery. We began by conducting surveys across all levels of the agency to determine our strengths and weaknesses in the area of recovery. We then utilized this information to create an agency action plan, which identifies our goals and action steps, as an agency, to create a more recovery-focused environment. We have a core team of individuals (staff and individuals served within our programs) who attend monthly meetings with AHCI and the five other providers to discuss our progress on our action plans, training needs, problems with plan implementation, etc. The action plan that RCS, Inc. has created focuses on the following levels of service: Human Resources (staff retention/turnover, staff attraction, and staff trainings), Programmatic (decreasing hospitalizations, successful program completion, and transition to work), and the financial level (monitoring monthly incomes, monitoring expenses, and monitoring funding).

Residential Care Services, Inc. has taken many steps towards becoming a Center of Excellence in Recovery over the past three years. Three individuals from RCS, Inc. have been certified as trainers in the area of Wellness Recovery Action Plans. The trainers have provided WRAP overview sessions for all staff members and have conducted several training sessions for individuals from various agency programs. All agency staff will review Wellness Recovery Action Planning annually, and individual sessions will be offered quarterly. The agency has also implemented an internal Recovery Committee made up of both staff and individuals served within our programs. The Recovery Committee’s current projects include: development of personal recovery stories, revision of the agency’s satisfaction and follow-up surveys, and implementation of recovery tools from the Patricia Deegan Training Institute. The agency has developed and adopted a new policy on Recovery to ensure all programs and staff members are following the recovery model. RCS, Inc. is also working to revise the agency policies/procedures, staff evaluations, and treatment plans to include recovery practices and language. RCS, Inc. also continues to assist in the production process of the Recovery Journal, which is a newsletter published by the Centers of Excellence. All individuals within RCS, Inc. have the opportunity to contribute to this newsletter (i.e. personal stories, recovery related articles, artwork, etc.). Residential Care Services, Inc. is committed to offering recovery-oriented services and will continue to partner with the individuals within our programs to become a Center of Excellence in Recovery.