BY MELISSA PATRICK
KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS
LEXINGTON — Six Kentuckians were honored with 2024 Champions of Recovery Awards at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s ninth annual Kentucky Workforce Summit held in Lexington on May 14.
The awards are sponsored by the Kentucky Association of Independent Recovery Organizations and the Recovery Consortium of Kentucky.
Recipients of the inaugural KAIROS Legislative Champion Award, recognizing state legislators who have partnered to advance significant legislation to improve treatment resources, standards of patient care, and long-term results for Kentuckians, were:
- Rep. Kim Moser, R-Taylor Mill — lead sponsor of this year’s House Bill 505, which amended requirements for peer-support specialists to increase accountability and standardize qualifications, training and oversight across the industry to help better serve persons in treatment.
- Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield — lead sponsor of last year’s HB 248 (and co-sponsor of this year’s HB 462), which established quality standards for recovery housing in Kentucky – a critical component to sustaining long-term recovery among individuals with substance-use disorder.
- Sen. Phillip Wheeler, R-Pikeville — lead sponsor of this year’s Senate Bill 71, which implemented guidelines for addiction-treatment centers to provide transportation services to clients leaving recovery programs and included important guardrails for the alternative sentencing worker program.
“The 2,100 plus dedicated professionals represented by KAIROS are extremely grateful for our strong legislative partners,” John Wilson, Addiction Recovery Care market president and KAIROS chairman, said in a news release from the two groups. “Thanks to their collaboration and commitment, we are advancing the commonwealth as a national leader in addiction treatment and recovery.”
Three Kentuckians were inducted into the fourth annual RECON Kentucky Recovery Hall of Fame. These awards recognize individuals in long-term recovery and those who have taken a leading role in addressing Kentucky’s addiction crisis through prevention, treatment, education and advocacy efforts. Two of the awards are named after inaugural inductees U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers and Jay Davidson of The Healing Place.
Nancy Hale of Mount Vernon received the Congressman Hal Rogers Award, which recognizes Kentucky public officials who have advocated legislation and policies that address the addiction crisis and help Kentuckians with substance-use disorders reach long-term recovery.
Hale received the award for her 34-year career in public education and her efforts to help lead Operation UNITE, an innovative substance misuse and recovery collaboration serving 33 southern and eastern Kentucky counties, for more than a decade. Hale served as Operation UNITE’s third president and CEO from 2015-2023. UNITE is an acronym for Unlawful Narcotics Investigations, Treatment and Education.
The late Dr. Burns M. Brady of Louisville posthumously received the Jay Davidson Award, which recognizes an individual in recovery who has helped to support Kentuckians with their long-term recovery.
Brady was a family doctor for 25 years, co-founded The Healing Place, an award-winning Louisville-based addiction recovery program serving individuals at no cost to the client, and volunteered extensively across the U.S. to help with recovery efforts in the prison system, the release said.
Logan Aluminum of Russellville received the Second Chance Employer of the Year Award for its fair-chance employment of people in recovery and advocacy of the Chamber’s Workforce Recovery Program. Logan Aluminum was also influential in the passage of SB 191 in 2020, which provides businesses with liability protections when hiring individuals in recovery through the Kentucky Transformational Employment Program, according to the release.
Kentucky Health News is an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.
