09/14/2025
Crestwood's Peer Support Workforce
"Back to Basics and the Conductors of Our Recovery Symphonies"
by Chris Martin, Crestwood Sr. Director of Learning and Performance
For two days in August, 42 of Crestwood’s Directors of Staff Development attended a two-day staff educator conference called “Back to Basics” hosted by Pam Norris and the Learning and Performance Team (LPT). One of the many workshops they attended was called “The Invocation of Staff Education and Development Is for a Higher Calling to Recovery Transformation.” In this workshop, they first reviewed our working definition of recovery and discovery… “Recovery is remembering who you are using your strengths to become all you are meant to be.” (Discovery is the term used for young people as well as some of the folks at our skilled nursing facilities.)
Then they learned about some miraculous stories of recovery and discovery transformation taking place at another campus in the country of Brazil; in the state of Bahia, at a school called NEOJIBA (pronounced Knee-Oh-Gee-Bah). It involves a school of 30 faculty members who have prepared and trained over 36,000 children and young people.
The program, created by pianist and conductor Ricardo Castro, integrates culture, education, social development, and musical practice. Most of the youth come from disadvantaged homes where trauma is a common part of their everyday experience. According to the Asst. Director, Luisa Altman, “Trauma related to poverty, violence, emotional, physical and sexual abuse, mental health conditions and/or addiction impacts the lives of at least 80% of our student body.”
The transformational miracle is the young people experience human development (recovery and/or self-discovery) through education and music practice. They transform into professional orchestra musicians. The Bahia Youth Orchestra performs all over South America and with 8 international tours to date. The program is not only life-changing for the young musicians, but it also transforms their families and community.
Conducting Our Recovery Symphonies in the Way We Train and Develop Staff
By using the inspiring example of the Bahia Youth Orchestra of Brazil, staff educators, who are skilled in the discipline of facilitating change and transformational growth in staff performance, were tasked to “edu-neer” something out of the ordinary to attain the transformational extraordinary. Edu-neers were then divided into three sections of the Woodwinds, Percussion, and Strings. Each team composed strategies for raising the harmony and precision of recovery practices at their campuses. Here are just a few of their musical notes to create a campus-wide transformational recovery symphony:
• Have every staff member write a vision statement on the “why” they are doing this work and post it on a wall where all guests and staff can read it.
• Conduct coffee talks during the day where guests and staff alike can connect in recovery conversations.
• Create opportunities for bread breaking experiences with guests and staff.
• Distribute Recovery Award Certificates when staff and guests display positive acts of recovery.
To read a tribute to the symphonic Directors of Staff Development at Crestwood, read the following poem.
"Where Can We Find a Conductor for Our Recovery Symphonies?"
They can train Proact like a Pro to help our staff grow,
They can cover policies and procedures like regulatory teachers,
They can train self-reliance in quality and compliance,
And cover HIPAA relations to avoid those citations.
They can deliver NEO’s at the turn of a dime,
And spin out an in-service for a need just in time.
But what will bring them to days of a satisfied feeling…
Is seeing staff serve in ways that promote recovery and healing.
Perhaps it’s not educating, training, or teaching,
That helps staff rise above the status quo we’ve been reaching.
But a higher vision is needed which calls our guests to see,
That a full life beyond our walls is where they can be.
What will it take for our campuses to gain this epiphany,
To become a unified orchestra, producing a new life symphony,
Where the keys of recovery blend with the strings of resilience,
Changing lives all around while we all feel the brazil-liance?
This recovery classic will take hard work and much perspiration,
So it must be led by maestros with great zeal and inspiration.
Where can we find these conductors to bring us discovery and elation?
Look no further; they’re the Directors of Staff Development and recovery education!
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
~ Willam Butler Yeats
