Recovery coaches ask lawmakers for $1.25M in opioid-abatement funds to sustain peer programs in prisons and probation

Witnesses from Turning Point Centers and community recovery organizations told the House Corrections & Institutions Committee on Feb. 11 that peer recovery coaching in correctional facilities and probation/parole settings helps people stay engaged in treatment, connect with housing and employment, and reduces returns to custody.

Tracy Hauck, director of the Turning Point Center at Rutland, described a case study of an individual who has been clean for two years after sustained contact with recovery coaching and urged the legislature to renew $800,000 in prevention funds and to appropriate $1,250,000 in FY27 opioid-abatement funds to maintain peer coaching at 18 sites across Vermont (six correctional facilities and 12 probation and parole locations).

"Peer recovery coaching works because we show up consistently," Hauck said. She told the committee that more than $1,000,000 of the requested $1.25M would pay front-line peer staff, administrative costs are minimal and capped at 10 percent, and federal grant funding that had supported the program has ended.

John Hoyt, program lead for Recovery, Culture and Reentry at Southern State facility, and Dylan Johnson, a recovery coach and intake coordinator in Bennington, provided lived-experience perspectives about program impacts, including that in their catchment areas roughly half of people introduced to recovery services did not return to prison in the quarter cited. They and other witnesses stressed that peer coaches help build "recovery capital" (housing, employment, family supports) that enable people to comply with court conditions and stabilize post-release.

Committee members asked whether illicit substance access in facilities undermines recovery efforts; witnesses acknowledged illicit drug availability in some settings but said peer coaches and community connections materially increase the chance of successful reentry.

Turning Point representatives said the grant that funds peers in corrections will end on June 30 and that probation/parole peer funding will end Jan. 31 unless the requested state funding is appropriated. They urged lawmakers to adopt a multi-site, sustained funding approach to preserve continuity of services across facilities and probation/parole offices.

The committee did not vote on funding; members thanked witnesses and noted the testimony will inform the forthcoming budget deliberations.