DEAR NATIONAL ALCOHOL AND DRUG
ADDICTION RECOVERY MONTH PLANNER:
That is the theme of the 15th annual National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month (Recovery Month), which will celebrate people in recovery who have overcome stigma, denial, and other barriers to treatment -- and as a result are leading healthy and productive lives in recovery.
This year's Recovery Month materials focus on improving access to recovery among the large number of Americans who have difficulty obtaining treatment for alcohol or drug use disorders. Of particular importance to a wide range of public and private organizations in the alcohol and drug use disorder treatment field is the Access to Recovery initiative launched by President Bush to help those in need secure the best treatment options available to meet their specific needs. With your help, we will spread the word nationwide about the positive impact of treatment and the ways in which communities can improve access to and achieve recovery for those who are addicted.
Whether this is your first Recovery Month campaign or you are building on past efforts, the special events and activities you hold in September 2004 make an important contribution to raising year-round awareness of the issues surrounding alcohol and drug use disorders, related issues and recovery. Because of people like you, Recovery Month becomes more and more successful with each passing year.
The Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administrations's (SAMHSA)'s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, created this comprehensive, user-friendly planning toolkit in conjunction with its national planning partner organizations and treatment providers to help you reach your target audiences throughout your campaign.
This planning toolkit provides everything you need to prepare for your events and activities. It includes materials tailored to key constituent groups with steps to improve treatment and recovery, templates of media outreach materials that you can customize, and suggestions for educating your community about treatment and recovery. Using these materials, you can plan and launch an effective Recovery Month campaign in just five simple steps:
Target two or three constituent groups in your community that you believe will benefit most from your campaign.
Select and plan your activities/events. You can use the "Promotional Event Ideas" fact sheet enclosed in this planning toolkit for ideas.
Publicize your event in advance by customizing the media outreach templates provided in this planning toolkit and distributing them to your local media outlets, and by posting your event(s) on the Recovery Month Web site at www.recoverymonth.gov.
Conduct your event and distribute the relevant constituency fact sheets provided in this kit to attendees.
Share the success and key learnings of your campaign by returning the customer satisfaction form enclosed in the kit.
You can download electronic versions of Recovery Month materials from the CD-ROM in this planning kit or at www.recoverymonth.gov.The Web site also provides additional planning resources, media updates and alerts, Web events, and news about Recovery Month activities across the country. To order additional hard-copy kits at no cost, call 1-800-662-HELP.
Your invaluable efforts at the local level, in conjunction with those of others across the country, will affect the lives of millions of individuals and their families. Thank you for your support.
MEDIA OUTREACH – In this section, you will find event ideas and sample materials to help you generate local media interest in your National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month (Recovery Month) activities. The first two items are for your reference:
The remaining items are media outreach materials. Each item begins with instructions for its use, followed by a sample draft to show the appropriate format. You may write your materials using the samples as a guide, or download the PDF files from this site and adapt them, adding information specific to your community and your organization. You can print them on your organization's letter-head or copy them onto the camera-ready letterhead provided. You also can customize your materials using the camera-ready logo sheet provided.
Media Advisory -- A media advisory that encourages local press to attend an event
Press Release -- A press release that provides more detail about your organization's event(s)
Opinion Piece -- An opinion piece that you can customize for submission to the op-ed pages of local newspaper(s), making sure that you submit different versions to different newspapers
Official Proclamations -- Official proclamations for mayors, governors, or other leaders to issue, at your request
TARGETED OUTREACH – This section contains background information about alcohol and drug use disorders. Each fact sheet has been graphically designed and is camera-ready, so you may distribute these materials "as is" to the audiences you are targeting with your National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month (Recovery Month) activities. Some of these materials also may be appropriate for the media as part of your press kit.
Two types of fact sheets are provided: those that discuss general information and those that are designed for specific audiences. The audience-specific fact sheets contain suggested action steps your target audiences can take to help support Recovery Month, as well as to promote recovery throughout the year.
You are welcome to use just the fact sheet designed for a particular audience or to use a combination of fact sheets, adding selected materials from the "Resources" section of this planning toolkit to create an information packet to distribute. A listing of fact sheets follows.
RESOURCES – The resources included in this section will help you conduct outreach to the audiences you need to target as you plan and execute your National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month (Recovery Month) activities. To help you plan and evaluate your Recovery Month activities, the following resources are provided:
