GrowthWorks tells appropriations panel its Rescue Recovery peer-coach model gets 90% to accept treatment, seeks sustained funding

GrowthWorks CEO Nick Griswold told the Michigan House Appropriations Subcommittee on Human Services that GrowthWorks’ Rescue Recovery program dispatches peer recovery coaches to hospitals and other sites and has a 90% initial acceptance rate into treatment.

The program, which Griswold described to Chair Roth and committee members, sends peer recovery coaches into hospitals and other points of contact 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and “we dispatch a coach in less than 45 minutes,” Griswold said. Jordan Selleck, executive director of the Conference of Western Wayne, said the conference partnered with GrowthWorks and Trinity Health Livonia on the pilot after first responders reported repeatedly encountering the same people in overdose crises.

Griswold said Rescue Recovery began with a pilot in February 2017 and has expanded to serve Western Wayne County and two area Trinity Health hospitals. GrowthWorks reports 20 staff working on the program and 873 contacts between October 2024 and August 2025; Griswold said 90% of those contacts accepted help to get into treatment. He also said the program’s reporting goes back to 2018 and that, over time, GrowthWorks “have contacted and helped over 6,000 people” transported to hospitals, appearing at police departments or district courts.

The witnesses described how peer recovery coaches use lived experience to connect people in a narrow “moment of clarity” after an overdose or other crisis, help remove barriers to immediate treatment and continue engagement for up to a year. “There’s this little window of time where someone can hear that message about having something different for their life,” Griswold said, explaining why coaches often drive people directly to treatment facilities.

Committee members pressed the panel on funding and sustainability. In response to a direct question from Representative Kelly, Griswold said, “Last year’s legislative appropriation was $1,000,000.” Griswold and Selleck told the committee that many of the activities Rescue Recovery performs — immediate outreach, rapid transport to treatment and extended follow-up — are not currently reimbursed consistently through existing public payment systems and that legislative support has helped sustain operations.

Griswold described the program’s partnerships as essential to its operation: GrowthWorks, the Conference of Western Wayne, local police and fire departments, and area hospitals. He said the Rescue Recovery dispatch model relies on cooperation with hospital intake and with local behavioral health systems and that registration delays in the public mental health system can prevent reimbursement for services provided at the moment of contact.

The committee did not take formal action on program funding at the hearing. GrowthWorks provided to the clerk two years of annual reports and other materials documenting outcomes and said staff stand ready to provide additional data on request.

The subcommittee adjourned after hearing additional testimony on related behavioral health issues.