Walton Empowers tells commissioners it connected 678 people to recovery last year, highlights jail reentry work

Courtney Wright, executive director of Walton Empowers, told the Walton County Board of Commissioners that the local nonprofit connected 678 people to recovery support services last year and provided more than 16,700 peer-support contacts.

"Every number represents someone's son, someone's daughter, someone's mother, someone's father," Wright said, describing the organization's work with hospitals, Ridgeview Institute, the Department of Family and Children Services and local reentry partners. She said Walton Empowers facilitates hospital-based peers, transportation to treatment, family support, overdose-prevention education and recovery groups.

Wright highlighted a jail reentry partnership with the Alcovy Judicial Circuit, saying the program places peer recovery coaches in the jail to begin building recovery plans before people return to the community. Tabitha Daniels, Walton Empowers' peer outreach coordinator, described her own path from incarceration to certification as an addiction recovery empowerment specialist and said she now provides continuing recovery support in coordination with probation and parole.

The presentation emphasized measurable outputs: more than 364 recovery-support groups serving about 5,000 people in the past year and roughly 2,900 transportation trips to treatment, health care and court appointments. Wright said Walton Empowers has secured state and federal grant funding that allows the nonprofit to expand services across Walton County.

The presentation was provided for the commission's information; commissioners thanked Walton Empowers for its work and did not take an immediate action to allocate county funds. The board moved on to other agenda items after the presentation.