Shannon Hays of Family Service Association of Bucks County: guest speaker

What I found most interesting from Shannon Hays’ speech was that only three of the places take people on medication-assisted recovery. That is crazy to me. I understand why some may be against it personally, but is it really worth denying someone help because of it? I just think if someone is seeking help that we need to be there for them-who cares if they are in recovery in an “assisted” way?

I really think that this shows a deeper breakdown and stigma within the community. If the recovery community can’t even rally around people, why would people feel confident enough to seek out help? The one place that really should be judgment-free isn’t judgment-free and that is a big issue. People won’t be motivated to seek out something that is such a big step and so challenging to go after at times if there is only “halfway support.”

Brianna Cicero

Brianna is a senior journalism major at Temple University with a concentration on Editorial Management. She is currently a Content Strategist Intern and Editor-in-Chief for Odyssey, the Editorial Director of Temple's chapter of Spoon University and the Deputy Director of Parliament Communications for Temple Student Government. This past summer, Brianna worked for her local, hometown paper, LNP and LancasterOnline, covering events and issues important to the people of Lancaster County. She is also a 2016 alumna of The Fund For American Studies' Institute on Political Journalism where she covered the 2016 election in Washington D.C for a political startup, The Stream, as well as attended briefings at publications like The Washington Post. In addition, she has previously served as a contributor for BuzzFeed, was a staff reporter for Eastern University's newspaper, The Waltonian, and was the EditorinChief of Eastern's literary magazine, Inklings. Contact Brianna at [email protected] .