Meet the 2022 Pittsburgh Recovery Award Winners
In 2022, we again issued a call for nominations for three recovery award categories:
Recovery Advocate: An individual who has worked to change policy or public opinion about addiction and recovery
Recovery Caregiver: An individual who provides outstanding direct care to people with addiction/people seeking recovery (e.g., recovery supports, counselors, case managers, medical professionals, first responders, and more)
Recovery Pathway Supporter: An individual who has worked to broaden the range of recovery pathways available in the greater Pittsburgh area (e.g., someone who has worked to promote MAT, harm reduction, alternative peer support groups, etc.)
Here are the 2022 winners.
RECOVERY ADVOCATE: STACIE BROWN
Stacie Brown is a woman in long term recovery and an overdose survivor.
Stacie has been working with individuals with substance use disorders since 2013. She started as a Certified Recovery Specialist at Onala Recovery Center and soon became a Certified Family Recovery Specialist as well. In 2016, she became a volunteer for Prevention Point Pittsburgh under the supervision of Alice Bell and Ron Johnson and began conducting naloxone trainings for the Onala community. By the end of 2017, she had trained over 600 individuals to respond to an overdose.
Early in 2019, she began working as an Opioid Response Outreach Coordinator with the Allegheny County Health Department. At the Health Department, Stacie is responsible for the distribution of approximately 10,000 kits of Narcan a year. She has trained thousands of people how to administer Narcan and utilize other harm reduction strategies. Each year, she hosts hundreds of pop-up health fairs to build community and connect folks with resources.
Stacie’s nomination said, “Stacie knows everybody and brings folks together like no other. But another important aspect of Stacie is how she has merged abstinence-based ideology with multiple recovery pathways and harm reduction. The gaps between these arguably opposing ideologies needed to be bridged and Stacie has done so. She has taught me and so many others so much!”
RECOVERY CAREGIVER: KELLY FISCHETTI
Kelly Fischetti is a Certified Addiction Counselor who has worked in the field for the last 10 years.
Currently, Kelly works at an outpatient facility, White Oak Wellness, where she works directly with local inpatient rehabs to get people into higher levels of care on a daily basis. Kelly also does community outreach, including providing resources to people experiencing homelessness
Addiction has directly impacted Kelly’s life. Helping people who are struggling and also ending the stigma around the disease has been her passion for as long as she can remember.
Although she works in the field of addiction, Kelly said she doesn’t consider it “work because it doesn’t feel like work to me. I would be helping and fighting for this community regardless of my current position.”
She is committed to fighting for all of those who we have lost to the disease (including her beautiful cousin Toni Voithoffer), and for everyone out there who is ready or not quite ready to get help yet. Going forward, she will continue to educate the community to end the stigma around substance use disorders, harm reduction, and all things mental illness.
Kelly’s nomination for this award said “anybody would be lucky to have her in their corner.”
RECOVERY PATHWAY SUPPORTER: ADAM BEERS
Adam Beers (He/Him/His) is a Certified Recovery Specialist, Certified Family Recovery Specialist, National Certified Peer Recovery Support Specialist, and a Certified Medication Assisted Treatment Advocate. Adam has an undergraduate degree in Sociology/Psychology and an Opioid Treatment Specialist Certificate from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree at Slippery Rock University in Public Health.
Adam is the Director of Operations at Sage’s Army, Inc., a non-profit Recovery Community Organization located in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and he serves on the board of directors for several organizations in Western Pennsylvania.
Adam is a person in recovery, and he has lived experience with a variety of different treatment settings and the criminal justice system. He is very passionate about ending the war on drugs, eliminating the stigma surrounding substance use and recovery, increasing access to life-saving harm reduction services, and providing people who use drugs a safe space to feel heard, supported, and loved.
In 2022, Adam was part of the Allegheny County Health Department’s campaign advocating for harm reduction and greater naloxone (Narcan) access for our communities. If you’re traveling around Allegheny County, you might just spot him on one of the billboards where he is featured as part of this campaign!
His nomination for this award said, “Adam works tirelessly to battle misinformation and is always looking for new and innovative ways to help our communities. He is an incredible asset to the Pittsburgh area.”
