The Greater Philadelphia Association for Recovery Education

Our Mission

Over 150,000 high school students each year leave a substance abuse treatment program committed to continuing their road to recovery from alcohol or other drug abuse or addiction. Unfortunately, 8 out of 10 of these students who return to their previous high schools will relapse within the first year. 
 

But there is hope. Across the country, nearly 30 recovery high schools have been established to help support students committed to leading sober lives as they continue their academic studies.  Schools committed to a structure and culture of recovery improve students’ chances for sustaining sobriety throughout adolescence and into adulthood. 

The primary mission of GPARE’s high school for grades 9 – 12 is to offer a strong academic program to students in recovery — one that allows them to focus on learning and provides a community that requires and supports sobriety.

While our paramount objective is to provide a meaningful and challenging educational program, we recognize that our students need time during the school day to develop tools and strategies for maintaining sobriety.  These combined objectives will help our students succeed on the life-long road to recovery as they continue to live, work, and play in their communities.

Our school offers a variety of services including:

What Is A
Recovery
School?

The Association of Recovery Schools (ARS), a national advocacy group for secondary and post-secondary educational institutions, defines a recovery school as one that provides:

Why
Recovery
Schools?

Research indicates that 8 out of 10 students who return to their home schools after discharge from a treatment program will relapse within the first year.1  Recovery schools provide supportive academic environments to students on their journey to sobriety and have been proven to prevent relapse, in many cases.

Frequently, students with a history of substance abuse or dependency have obtained and used drugs and/or alcohol at their previous schools with their peers.  A recovery school gives students a chance to remove themselves from the strong influences of their pre-treatment lives— “people, places and things.” A recent study shows that students who were enrolled in an ARS recovery school for at least 3 months sustained longer periods of abstinence, and reported decreased negative feelings and a decline in the urge to use.2

Finch, Andrew J. Starting a Recovery School. Hazelden Press. 2005 
Moberg, D. Paul, et al. “The Role of Recovery High Schools in the Continuum of Care:    Empirical Findings.” PowerPoint presentation. October 1, 2009.

Our Board

Jan Ambrose, Ph.D is Chair and Associate Professor of the Finance Department and Risk Management and Insurance Program at La Salle University in Philadelphia.  Jan earned her doctorate at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and has enjoyed a rewarding career in academia for over 15 years.  She strongly believes in the importance of building and contributing to community and lends her expertise on insurance, finance and leadership issues by serving as Treasurer for the Board of Directors of GPARE and volunteering as a board member of the Swarthmore Co-op,  located in Delaware County, PA.

Rebecca Bonner, M.Ed., MUPP is a founding board member of GPARE and Secretary of the Board of Directors of GPARE as well as its acting Executive Director.  She has worked with non-profits for over 20 years in secondary and post-secondary education as well as small business development and currently sits on the Advisory Board of the Office of Addiction Services for the city of Philadelphia.  She earned her Master of Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and her Master of Education from Temple University.  For seven years, she worked as a middle school division leader and faculty coordinator for an independent Friends school in Philadelphia where she handled day-to-day operations concerning budget, staffing, student discipline and curriculum development.  

Rosalie Spelman is an attorney in private practice in Swarthmore,  Pennsylvania.  Before law school at Georgetown in Washington DC,  Rosalie earned a Master of Arts in Teaching at Northwestern in Evanston Illinois.  She taught high school in the Chicago area  to a broad range of high school students.  Among other things, Rosalie now works with individuals and non-profits in designing  planned giving.   Like other members of the GPARE board, Rosalie strongly believes in supporting adolescents in the critical time of recovery from addiction. 

Beth Fitzsimons is the Consulting Leader at CBI Group in Newark, DE and currently sits on the boards of Caron Foundation, a nationally-renowned treatment facility for substance addiction in Wernersville, PA, and is a founding board member of the Association of Recovery Schools, a national organization for the advocacy of recovery education in secondary and post-secondary schools. Beth brings her experience with national recovery organizations to the Board of GPARE.

Greg Goldman, MPPS is currently the CEO of Digital Impact Group, a non-profit dedicated to making the internet accessible to all Philadelphians regardless of income.  Formerly, Goldman served as executive director of MANNA, a volunteer-based organization that serves the nutritional needs of persons living with HIV/AIDS.  Greg is an Eisenhower Fellow who earned his Bachelor of Arts at Northwestern and a Master of Public Policy Studies from the University of Chicago.  Greg lends his expertise on non-profit development and management to the Board of GPARE.

Susan Josephs, M.Ed. is a founding board member and current Vice President of the Board of Directors of GPARE.  She has spent her entire career in education in support of struggling students, ranging in age from young children to adults.  She earned her Master’s Degree in Reading/Writing/Literacy from the University Of Pennsylvania and is a state-certified Reading Specialist.  Previously the Learning Specialist at an independent Friends school in Philadelphia, she is currently on the faculty at Philadelphia University.

Richard Roisman, J.D. is a partner in the Philadelphia office of McCarter & English, LLP.  Richard has more than 30 years of experience in real estate and corporate and commercial financing.  He received his B.A. from George Washington University and his J.D. from the University of Miami.  In addition to GPARE, he serves on the Finance Committee of the Board of Directors of Caron Treatment Centers located in Wernersville, PA, is a member of the Caron Treatment Centers Philadelphia Regional Advisory Board, and sits on the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Substance Abuse.   Richard lives in Philadelphia with his wife of 26 years, Lee. 

Philip Tankel, Ph.D. has been a psychologist in private practice in Philadelphia for the past twenty years.  In addition to his private practice, Phil is on staff at the Center for Postpartum Depression in Philadelphia.  Previously he had been on the staff of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, the Burlington (NJ) Center for Psychotherapy, and the Adolescent Drug Rehabilitation Unit, a state-sponsored residential facility for adjudicated adolescents in the state of Connecticut.  Phil is a licensed psychologist in the state of Pennsylvania and concentrates his work on the Board of GPARE on psychological services and coordinating those services with referring agencies and schools.

Sharon Weinman, J.D. is a founding board member and current President of the Board of Directors of GPARE. Her commitment to recovery education for high school students grows out of her own family history with alcoholism and recovery and her desire to support adolescents in the challenging journey to adulthood. Sharon lives in Philadelphia and is currently the Director of Organizational Development & Training at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey. She previously practiced law in Philadelphia and has served on the boards of other non-profit organizations.

Advisory Board

Amy Sisson, J.D. is a Business Analyst at Towers Watson. She served as the Vestry member in charge of Children and Youth for Trinity Episcopal Church, Swarthmore and provided communication and technical support for the Philadelphia Caron Parents Group.  Amy received her law degree from Northeastern University.

Laurie currently co-anchors the morning news for WPIX-TV in New York City. Laurie is the only anchor to have hosted shows on the three primary cable news networks: CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel. While at Fox, she reported extensively from the Middle East, including Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. After leaving Fox, Laurie was a senior vice-president at FD, a global strategic communications consulting firm in New York City, and she later founded Dhue Point Consulting, Inc., which provides media relations counsel and communications training to a wide variety of clients. Laurie made public her 15 year battle with alcoholism in February of 2011. She is very proud of recently marking her 4th year of sobriety. In addition to serving on the Advisory Board for GPARE, Laurie is on the board of the National Youth Recovery Foundation and SLAM (Sober Learning and Motivation), a non-profit who is working to establish a sober high school in New York City.

Judy Okin-Wertheimer, MSS has been providing professional development opportunities and technical assistance for the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC) for 12 years.  She consults extensively with early childhood programs on quality improvement and has guided several programs through the NAEYC Accreditation process. Judy co-chaired committees that established two start- up programs: Kehilla Early Learning Center in Wallingford, PA  and the Swarthmore, PA location for A Better Chance, a national organization offering educational opportunities to young people of color.   She was a member of the board of A Better Chance for six years, serving as co-chair of the program for young women. Judy received an MSS from Bryw Mawr School of Social Work. 

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