TCNJ DHS Grant addiction recovery
NJ DHS commissioner Jennifer Velez speaks at TCNJ's Loser Hall during announcement of $245,000 addiction recovery grant. To her left is Assistant Commissioner for the New Jersey Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services Lynn Kovich, TCNJ Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students Angela Chong and TCNJ Clinic Director Nancy Scott. (Brendan McGrath | Times of Trenton)
EWING — The College of New Jersey will establish recovery housing for students suffering from alcohol and drug addiction with the help of a $245,000 grant awarded by the state Thursday.
Jennifer Velez, the commissioner of the state Department of Human Services, visited campus to announce that TCNJ and Rutgers University received grants to help students recover from addiction.
Rutgers will use its $245,000 grant to expand existing programs.
Velez called a statistic from a Harvard University study on collegiate alcohol abuse "pretty telling."
"Thirty-one percent of the nation's college students meet criteria for an alcohol abuse diagnosis.”
This alone should serve as motivation for implementing programs to combat abuse, she said.
“It will allow us to meet the needs of students in recovery in terms of housing,” said Amy Hecht, TCNJ’s vice president of student affairs.
Two factors that played in the favor of both TCNJ and Rutgers were buy-in from the schools’ administrations and the pre-existence of extensive programs to deal with drug and alcohol abuse, Velez said.
TCNJ administrators and faculty who will work on the program were on hand for the announcement and expressed their optimism.
“The only difference between some of our college students and high school students is just three months,” said Stuart Roe, an assistant professor of counselor education. “They go from having all of these built-in support systems all through high school … and then three months later, that’s it.”
The recovery housing, which will be worked into the college’s broader anti-substance abuse program, will begin with one college-owned off-campus house of about six or seven students.
“We’re going to have a house mentor who works with those students,” said Nancy Scott, director of TCNJ’s clinic that provides counseling to community. “They will be involved in things that really support them staying in recovery.”
The college will also use the grant money to establish a program of alcohol-free activities on campus that will serve as alternatives to drinking.
“What I’m most excited about with this is that we’re really working across the campus,” Sandy Gibson, assistant professor of counselor education on campus.
Lynn Kovich, assistant director of human services, said the comprehensive approach to addiction prevention and recovery on campus is similar to what the department encourages in broader communities.
“You’re really approaching it the way we’re talking to our communities about it,” Kovich said. “It’s kind of a ground up approach.”
While the department’s announcement focused on TCNJ, Rutgers also will receive money for similar initiatives.
“Rutgers will expand its current programs to identify and intervene with students who have substance use disorders and increase the number of students who have access to treatment and campus recovery support services,” the department said in an email.
Among the services being expanded is the recovery housing on Rutgers campuses in both New Brunswick and Newark.
Brendan McGrath may be reached at bmcgrath@njtimes.com. Follow him on Twitter @brendanrmcgrath. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.