Partnership with Boone County helps women thrive in recovery
By Ryan Hayes-Owens Kentucky
PUBLISHED 5:58 PM ET Feb. 16, 2024
FLORENCE, Ky. — Boone County is continuing its partnership with the Brighton Recovery Center for Women. Almost $190,000 will go toward helping the center continue their work in Northern Kentucky.
What You Need To Know
Boone County Fiscal Court approved a $190,000 agreement between the county and the center.
Brighton Recovery Center for Women is a 100-bed facility located in Florence that helps women recover from chronic substance use disorder and addiction
Anita Prater has served as the centers director for 16 years and will retire in March, but her replacement is already working to help women
Anita Prater has served as the Brighton Recovery Center Director for 16 years, and she is passing the torch to Jane Hamilton who will take over the role when she retires.
Prater said, “The spirituality of recovery, I guess, really is what captured my heart because it’s… it’s so cool. It’s so real and it’s so good.”
Prater and Hamilton have worked together for the past year trying to make sure that women in need continue to have access to resources before Prater retires in March.
Prater explained, “We have actually three programs in recovery services. One, obviously, is our long-term residential recovery center for women and then we also have Center Table, which is a social enterprise catering business.” She added, “Then we have a sober living house for women as they leave the program if they don’t have a place set up to go yet.”
This work has not gone unnoticed. Boone County Fiscal Court recently approved a $190,000 grant between the county and the center.
Hamilton said it’s important for people to know Boone County’s generosity. “The county we are working in and where the house is located is just supportive of this kind of model and supportive of them and recovery. And then also because it is really paying the majority of our staff salaries.”
The BRC is a 100-bed facility that uses a recovery dynamics curriculum and peer-driven model to support women in recovery, participating in a four phase plan. Women spend an average of nine months to a year at the center.
Hamilton said she continues to be amazed about the progress women make in the program saying, “I’ve been able to see is ladies that leave here and aren’t just making it through life, they’re now successful and productive and so much more than just those people in recovery.”
In the last year, the center has helped almost 250 women on their journey to recovery.