About the Alumni Association
The Justin’s Place Alumni Association began in February 2022. Jessica Betten serves as director of the alumni association, herself a graduate of the program.
In this interview, Jessica talks about the importance of the alumni association, how it’s helped graduates so far and what her goals are going into the second year.
Question: What’s the idea behind starting an alumni association and why it was created?
Jessica: The idea is to provide a continuum of care following the recovery program to keep graduates connected socially while teaching life skills, providing classes and responding to relapse. We want to walk side by side and remind them that they became part of a family and that doesn’t end the day they cross the stage.
It is extremely important for them to know they still have people to turn to when they’re struggling when they need fellowship when they need direction or help to accomplish goals. For some, this is the first time that they’ve even attempted or thought they were capable of these things. Having this alumni association empowers them to know that they can stay strong in their faith and utilize the skills they were given to live a healthy lifestyle following their departure from the program.
Q: How have you seen the effect on the alumni?
J: I’ve never seen the alumni so united. It’s awesome to see that it’s not just the ones who recently graduated but some of the first graduating classes coming to events, wanting to stay connected.
And I’ve been able to see people who were back lost in their addictions who have been able to turn it around and become involved after identifying what went wrong when they left the program. It’s so promising to see the stigma about relapse being smashed with more people willing to come forward because they know we’re going to help them. There was a time when people said we were hopeless. And now our children are playing together, and we have careers; we’re thriving in life. And for the ones that are just coming out of the recovery program, that’s super important to see.
Q: You went through the recovery program, and this was not in existence yet. How does it feel to be able to provide this for graduates?
J: It’s a huge blessing to be able to create this. I remember doing my best to stay connected, but people started to kind of slip away. It was sad, sad to not see people anymore that you saw every day and went through so much with. It’s not because we didn’t want to; it was just because life gets busy, and we’re adulting for the first time in our lives and trying to maintain the balancing act. The alumni association is creating that fellowship – the coming together, having somebody hold you accountable so that you’re not just in your head walking through this world on your own. Because as addicts, that’s not a good place to be and to stay connected makes all the difference.
Q: What are your goals for the future? How do you see the alumni association evolving in years to come?
J: I’m really focused on transitional housing for new alumni and monitoring home plans. We’re doing three-month, six-month and nine-month check-ins, and I’m starting to see the effectiveness of the plans. We’re also creating databases of the quickest and best ways to help people. So that when someone comes to us and needs treatment, we can easily know where to go.
And a lot moving forward is bettering what we’ve already started this year like keeping the events and the fun in sobriety shown to them because having things to look forward to is extremely important when you’re working hard to rebuild and live a healthy lifestyle.
Q: What would you say to people on the outside, whether it’s donors or volunteers or community partners who are wondering how they can help?
J: If you look at the St. Matthew’s House Justin’s Place Recovery Program, you’ll see immense success. It’s proof that people can overcome their addictions, vices, traumas and grief to make a comeback and change their entire life. The best way to be a supporter is to get involved either through volunteering or funding or prayer.
There are all sorts of things our recovery program provides – like scholarship opportunities, microgrants and transitional housing – that are necessary to keep going, but we need support. Every single day we have more and more people coming to us. Right now, we have 719 alumni, and that’s only going up!
For questions or interest in connecting with the Justin’s Place Alumni Association, email alumni@stmatthewshouse.org