GENERATION FOUND Film and Panel Discussion — How One Community Tackled its Youth Addiction Crisis with a Recovery Revolution | Press Releases

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (March 1, 2017) — Fairfield University will present a screening of GENERATION FOUND , followed by a panel discussion on Monday March 27, 2017 at 6:00 p.m. at the Quick Center for the Arts. The event is free and open to the public.

GENERATION FOUND is a documentary about one community coming together to ignite a youth addiction recovery revolution in their hometown.

Devastated by an epidemic of addiction, Houston, Texas faced the reality of burying and locking up its young people at an alarming rate. And so, in one of the largest cities in America, visionary counselors, law school dropouts, aspiring rock musicians, retired football players, oil industry executives and church leaders came together to build the world’s largest peer-driven youth and family recovery community.

Filmed over the course of two years, GENERATION FOUND takes an intimate look at how a system of treatment centers, sober high schools, alternative peer groups and collegiate recovery programs can exist in concert to intervene early and provide a real and tested long-term alternative to the “War on Drugs.” It is not only a deeply personal story but one with real-world utility for communities struggling with addiction worldwide.

Following the screening, a panel of experts will discuss the film and resources for dealing with addiction.

This event is co-sponsored by Fairfield University’s Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies, the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions and the Collegiate Recovery Program.

Panelists Include:

John Hamilton , CEO, Recovery Network of Programs will moderate the panel discussion.Hamilton has worked in the field of addiction prevention and treatment since 1981 and holds licenses in Alcohol and Drug Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy. Currently, he serves on the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Steering Committee of the Clinical Trials Network and is Chair of the Community Treatment Provider (CTP) Policy Committee.

Hamilton also serves as Chairman of the Advisory Board and is on the Executive Board for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), Vice President of the Board of Directors for Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) and the Regional Youth Adult Social Action Partnership (RYASAP), Chair for the CTP of Fairfield County, and is actively involved in community prevention councils in Fairfield County. John presents locally and internationally on a variety of topics and is considered an expert in the field of addiction treatment and prevention.

Virginia Kelly, PhD , is an author and professor of Counselor Education at Fairfield University in the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions. Dr. Kelly has been a counselor educator since 1993, and began teaching at Fairfield University in the fall of 2001. Throughout her career, she has taught in CACREP-accredited doctoral and master's level programs. In the counselor education department at Fairfield University Dr. Kelly generally teaches: Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy, Research Methodology, Lifespan Human Development and several of the school counseling courses.

Lisa Arnold, MFT, LADC , clinical coordinator of the Collegiate Recovery Program at Fairfield University will also join the panel.Arnold graduated from University of Connecticut with a bachelor's degree in Psychology and from Fairfield University with a Master's Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. In 2001, she became licensed in Alcohol and Drug Counseling through the state. Arnold has twenty-one years of experience working with addiction, in various treatment venues including detox, rehab, extended care facilities and hospitals, as well as in the higher education setting. She is a member of the CRP Advisory Board, which is responsible for opening up the first Recovery House on a college campus in Connecticut, and the first amongst Jesuit universities across the country.

Panelist Theresa Conroy, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC is aFairfield University Egan School of Nursing alumna and three term state representative. Conroy is actively working as an APRN and recently completed her third term in the state legislature in 2016, where she served in key positions and helped to create policy to combat the opioid epidemic. Conroy remains involved at the state and local level on policy issues related to the addiction crisis and is an advocate for APRNs to ensure that they have the opportunity to work to the full scope of their practice.

Award winning documentary filmmakers and co-creators of GENERATION FOUND, Greg Williams is executive producer and Jeff Reilly, film editor. Both Williams and Reilly previously collaborated on another feature film focusing on addiction recovery, The Anonymous People , which won the Prism Award for "Feature Documentary" in 2014.

To RSVP and to learn more about GENERATION FOUND please go to : https://www.fairfield.edu/generationfound/ .