By Caroline Beidler
Angelo Lagares, Founder and Director of Latino Recovery Advocates (LARA) shares his organization’s commitment to supporting cultural and linguistically appropriate Recovery Support Services, reducing historical health disparities and promoting diversity and inclusion in public health in the presentation: The Importance of Cultural Elements in Building Recovery Communities. In this groundbreaking work, Angelo shares both his personal experience and expertise in the field of addiction recovery to help increase the audience’s understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion as it relates to Latinx communities and other communities of color.
The goals of the presentation are to:
- Highlight addiction recovery from diverse perspectives, including different cultures and countries.
- Share historical context that has present implications for communities of color like the War on Drugs.
- Present clear solutions to end health disparities for diverse communities.
- Introduce the concept of healing from addiction as a universal right.
The Importance of Cultural Elements in Building Recovery Communities is more than just a presentation. Angelo Lagares states that his “soul is in this curriculum.” He, like countless individuals over the past decades, has suffered the loss of family and friends because of inequity and lack of justice in the addiction recovery movement. Lack of access to language-accessible treatment, recovery support services, and stigma have all played a role in increasing barriers to healing for too many communities. Angelo Lagares aims to change that with his advocacy work, personal recovery, and professional impact.
