These forums are designed to support recovery in your community by putting a face on recovery.

A listening session is designed to collect information from participants about their experiences, observations and ideas about a particular topic or issue.  They can provide a great opportunity for community members to interact with people in recovery.  Basic ground rules are important to help participants feel comfortable and safe enough to share, thereby improving the quality of any collected insights.  For example, our moderator might say things like:

• No cross talk
• -Raise your hand
• -Be clear, be brief
• -Stick to the question
• -Speak from your own experience

It is important to have some “experts” available and to prepare material to distribute at the session and also available online.

A “Community Listening Forum Toolkit” is available from www.facesandvoicesofrecovery.org.

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