WILMINGTON – Six more graduates of the You-Turn Recovery Docket will be recognized at the upcoming ceremony of the specialized drug program which is a component of Clinton County Common Pleas Court.
The event will be Thursday, May 27 at 7 p.m. at the Elevation Church, 107 Eagle-Martin Drive, Blanchester, according to Clinton County Common Pleas Court Judge John W. “Tim” Rudduck.
Judge Rudduck, who established the court in 2014, said this will increase the number of graduates from the docket to 37. Graduates have completed rigorous requirements of the minimum 18-month substance use recovery program.
Graduation will celebrate the recovery of Mark Allen, Michele Arledge, Trent Conger, Kyle Hargrave, Bambi Klaue, and the late Frank Moore. It is open to the public.
For those unable to attend the public, the program will be streamed live on the church’s YouTube channel.
The keynote speaker will be Richard Wonderling of Public Media Connect, the regional public media partnership of CET in Cincinnati and ThinkTV in Dayton.
Wonderling is a writer/producer of “20 Seconds of Courage: Fighting the Opioid Addiction in Rural Ohio”, which won four 2019 Regional Emmy Awards from the Ohio Valley Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
The 30-minute documentary documents the story of Blanchester farmer Roger Winemiller, who lost two of his three children to heroin overdoses. His one surviving child, a 20+ year user, is in recovery. The film tells the story of Roger and his family as they struggle to overcome the devastation of addiction.
Faced with overwhelmed and underfunded rural support services, Roger and others began reaching out to addicts and their families one person at a time in order to save their community.
“When this epidemic subsides, we can thank the people who stared it in the face and didn’t back down,” Wonderling said at the time of the film’s release. “The people in this film had a choice. They didn’t internalize their pain — they reached out to others. They’re shining a light in dark places,”
Watch the documentary online at https://bit.ly/3ozoz85 .
There will also be additional special recognition and awards during the graduation program, Judge Rudduck said.
This will mark the second time a graduation has been held at the Blanchester Church. Previous graduations have been held at the Presbyterian Church, Wilmington Church of Christ and First Christian Church in Wilmington.
You-Turn Recovery Docket participants are supervised by the judge as the head of a treatment team which also includes court supervision officers and area substance use treatment providers.
The team meets the first and third Friday afternoons of each month before status review hearings for participants that are held en masse in the Clinton County Common Pleas Courtroom at 1:30 p.m. and are open to the public.
Many people from the community regularly attend the status review hearings to lend support to the participants including those from local churches and others battling addiction who want to share their stories and offer encouragement.
To ensure accountability, participants are regularly and randomly tested for substance use, rewarded for meeting goals, and sanctioned for not meeting clearly stated obligations.
For more information on the docket, go to www.you-turn-drug-docket.org . Follow it on Facebook at You-Turn Recovery Docket, like it on Twitter at You-Turn@UturnDrugDocket, or contact supervision officer Jessica Harrington at 937-382-8686, ext. 1137, or by email at [email protected] .
