Last Thursday, Warwick-based nonprofit House of Hope celebrated the nine graduates of their Peer Mentor and Employment Training Program.

Graduates who were once homeless or recovering from addiction and mental health hardships will go on to support those in recovery. Thursday’s ceremony marks the 17th time House of Hope has held the program. Skills taught range from the practical, like CPR, to the interpersonal, such as preparing for job interviews.

Lived experiences with hardship make Peer Program graduates a trusted resource for the unhoused and those in recovery. Peer Program Manager Kayla Serrano explained prospective students are selected from applications and staff recommendations. House of Hope offers housing and services like complimentary showers, which allows staff to meet and select potential candidates for the program. After completing the seven-week course, graduates are matched with internships at local nonprofits. Once they’ve completed 500 hours of community work, graduates can receive a Peer Recovery Specialist (CPRS) certification from the state. The certificate allows access to increased educational and occupational opportunities.

Serrano, now in her second year of managing peer recovery work, leads her cohorts with a combination of tough love and on-the-fly thinking. These skills were made clear during her opening remarks when she eschewed a prepared speech, instead preferring to “speak from the heart.” She reiterated this philosophy by telling graduates to lead with “professionalism, love, and empathy.” Such an attitude is necessary during the intense course, which often addresses the traumas her students know all too well. Revisiting familiar topics like addiction, mental illness or sexual assault in the classroom can “be triggering,” said graduate Nicole Cervantes.

The program’s orderly approach reflects the challenging reality of supporting those in recovery. It also yields results.

In her third week of the program, Cervantes was hired by Project Weber/RENEW, a nonprofit focused on safe sex and drug use in Providence. She provides safe sex supplies, the overdose treatment Narcan, and safer drug use kits in South Providence. Cervantes was homeless in the neighborhood after getting kicked out of her childhood home at 18. Now celebrating one year of sobriety, Cervantes is “thrilled” to return and help her community.

Graduates are not limited to solely working in communities they’ve lived in. Le’Asia Souza, the program’s youngest graduate, originally hails from Cumberland. She will go on to work in Providence at a program focused on youth outreach.

To help cohorts succeed, measures are taken by House of Hope to provide support according to each student’s needs. One graduate who requested not to be named noted the accommodations made when his car failed to start. Cervantes corroborated this sentiment. A mother with a disabled child, Cervantes sometimes needed to prioritize her home life over classes. The course worked with her to help make up for missed lessons. Financial support is also provided through a stipend to cover living expenses.

The Peer Mentor program is costly to run. At around $3,000 per student, House of Hope relies on partnerships from organizations like Textron and Lifespan. Even the graduation venue was provided by SWAP Inc. SWAP is another community development corporation (CDC) that converts abandoned buildings into affordable housing and mixed-use developments. House of Hope shares SWAP’s 500 Broad St. property with similar community-based organizations that hold local gatherings. It’s these connections within the community that “distinguish” House of Hope from many other nonprofit organizations, said Serrano.

Along with establishing connections within the community, Serrano also championed the harm reduction approach to recovery. Harm reduction prioritizes safer drug use and sexual activity rather than complete abstinence from unsafe practices. Providing clean needles, as Cervantes does at Project Weber/RENEW, helps mitigate the risk from drug use by “meeting users where they are at,” says Cervantes. In Serrano’s experience, an aggressive insistence on immediate abstinence can lose a person, causing relapse. It might be more realistic to provide cleaner supplies to reduce the risk of diseases like HIV. At the same time, the person works at their own pace to manage their addiction.

True to her cause, Serrano encouraged attendees to take a free box of Narcan when leaving the graduation. Even if someone didn’t use it, having the box “starts a conversation” about new ways to combat addiction and homelessness. Reimagining what ending homelessness looks like is at the forefront of House of Hope’s ethos. The Peer Mentor and Employment Training program is one effective tool in their multi-pronged approach.