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News - 2009
Florida Therapeutic Community Alumni Celebrate National Recovery Month
West Caldwell, NJ, Oct 7, 2009 - A Community Education Centers operated Therapeutic Community (TC) at the Gainesville Correctional Institution (GCI) in Gainesville, Florida, took part in the September Recovery Month celebrations. Residents of the 64-bed TC held an assembly open to the entire compound during which successful alumni of CEC's Modality II Substance Abuse Program returned to the program and shared their journey of personal recovery with current inmates. Alumni reflected on how CEC staff provided the tools and information that helped them succeed on the outside.
CEC Alumni Robert Valdez, with six years of success in the free world, shared how his faith, in addition to what he learned during his assignment as an inmate to the Modality II Substance Abuse Program, had enabled his success spiritually, professionally, and personally in achieving and maintaining his own recovery. Mr. Valdez emphasized that it was possible to achieve success through applying what was taught in the TC program and through acceptance of responsibility for your actions.
"Larry" V. Burgess, Director of the CEC's Modality II Substance Abuse Program, opened the assembly and welcomed the Florida Department of Corrections prison administrators and attendee's and then introduced Senior Counselor Mark Pitts.
Mr. Pitts expressed his appreciation of the CEC alumni volunteers' efforts and presented the remaining CEC staff, Counselors Mervin Jackson, Duane Farr, Susie Banks, and Larry Faulkner, Phyllis Benefield, Administrative Assistant and Jim Denny, Clinical Support Provider, for taking the opportunity to thank each of them for making the Substance Abuse and Voluntary Literacy Programs at Gainesville successful.
The assembly was attended by Eric Lane, GCI Warden, Joseph Schuler, GCI Assistant Warden, Major William Seay, Head of Security of GCI's Santa Fe Work Release Center and Tom Bakos, Director of the House of Hope Halfway House located in Gainesville.
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