You can use the federal Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus as a model and lead efforts to form a Caucus in your state. Caucuses can help build visibility and support for recovery and educate state legislators about critical policies to make recovery possible for more people in your state.

Here are some simple organizing steps:

1. Identify allied organizations to work with you. Associations of counselors, prevention coalitions, your state director, treatment providers and others should all be interested.
2. Identify key legislators from both political parties who have been your supporters. It’s very important to demonstrate bi-partisan interest and support for recovery.
3. Meet with those key legislators. Here are some things to talk about:
   1. Caucus goals and why it’s important
      • Educating other legislators and drawing greater support for policies that support recovery.
      • Raising the profile of addiction treatment and recovery as a legislative priority
   2. Caucus activities
      • Briefings on issues
      • Background briefing papers on pending legislation and issues
      • Sponsorship of public events like Town Hall meetings.
   3. Caucus membership
      • Does it make sense to have a joint Senate and House caucus? At the federal level, the Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus is organized only in the House. It may make sense to have a joint Caucus if your state’s legislators have similar joint activities and organizations .
   4. Caucus leadership and management
      • The legislative leaders of the Caucus will be responsible for managing it. At the federal level, the Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus has bi-partisan leadership, two co-chairs and two vice co-chairs. They sent out an invitation letter to all members of the House. The more elected officials who are publicly identified and committed to the Caucus, the better.
   5. Supporting the Caucus
      • Offer the support of recovery community organizations and allied organizations in asking other elected officials to join, assisting in developing briefings and background papers and publicizing the Caucus’ activities.
4. Once a Caucus has been set up, work with advocates across your state to build membership in the Caucus; thank the Caucus leadership and work with the Caucus to develop briefings and other activities.

If you’d like more help in thinking through how to develop an Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus in your state, please email us.

 

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