Social Workers’ Role in the Recovery Ready Workplace

Friday, December 5, 2025 | 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)

Workshop Description

Note: In collaboration with Touro University and PARSE Coalition (NYS Coalition to Prevent Addiction and Support Recovery in Employment).

Ready Workplaces (also called Recovery Friendly Workplaces) are committed to making foundational change in the way they hire, treat, and support workers living in or seeking recovery from substance use and mental health disorders. Recovery Ready Workplaces move from a “zero tolerance” policy emphasizing disciplinary action to a “recovery” policy emphasizing help, hope, and realizing the economic potential of healthy employees.   Just as “housing first” policies recognize the role of stable housing in supporting recovery from substance use and mental health challenges, recovery ready workplaces recognize the need for stable, sustainable and supportive employment to support individuals in recovery and maximize their social contributions.

Social workers have a vital role in supporting recovery through employment. They can help individuals prepare for and connect to jobs, connecting them to organizations that offer resume support, interview coaching, and job training. They can also connect clients with recovery-ready employers or job placement organizations.  Social workers also provide supportive services to help clients navigate issues that arise on the job, and to maintain employment. Clinicians may assist businesses and labor unions in designing trauma-informed, person-centered policies and programs that reflect the core values of social work: social justice, dignity and worth of the person, the importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence. Social workers often work in agencies that engage a peer workforce that includes people in recovery yet support for these workers is inconsistent.

Social workers can also help organizations address the root causes of addiction and mental illness and the broader impact on families and communities, thus contributing to a healthier, more supportive workplace culture. They can also help organizations to understand how to minimize work stress, burn-out, and injury that may put recovering workers at higher risk for relapse or leaving the job.
 

This training will help social workers to connect with individuals and employers to make recovery ready workplaces a reality.

Learning Objectives

After completing this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Describe the impact of the opioid/substance use disorder crises on employers, workers, communities.
• Explain the connection between hazardous and stressful working conditions and prescription opioids or self-medication with alcohol and drugs.
• Review the benefits of employing and retaining people in recovery.
• Contrast drug free workplace with the RRW approach.
• Discuss the contribution of social workers in establishing and supporting RRW programs.

Continuing Education Credits: 3.0

This workshop is approved for licensed social workers, licensed mental health counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, and licensed psychologists.

Fees

• NASW-NY Member - $45.00
• Other Chapter Members (e.g., NASW-NJ, etc.) - $75.00
• Non-Member - $90.00
• NASW-NY Student and Transitional Member (Non-CE Eligible) - $0.00

Presenter(s):

Allison Weingarten, LMSW, CIH

Allison Weingarten supports the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Worker Training Program, focusing on training workers, supervisors, and employers on preventing addiction and supporting workers in recovery in the workplace.  Allison is a co-founding member of the NYS Coalition to Prevent Addiction and Support Recovery in Employment (PARSE).  She previously served as Director of Policy for Friends of Recovery-New York. Allison is a trained social worker and has experience in the NYS legislature and State Government.

Christopher Assini, CRPA-P

Christopher Assini is the Director of Policy for Friends of Recovery – New York. Christopher hails from the New York State Senate, where he worked in Senate Revision. There, he was an essential member of the team, analyzing, verifying and approving legislation for introduction for all members of the Senate. His position was integral on budgetary and legislative matters, in a bi-partisan fashion, allowing him to formulate working relationships with Senators and staff as well as different divisions of government. Christopher has developed and planned advocacy campaigns for a local nonprofit based in Albany where he was Program Manager prior to his work in the NYS Legislature. Christopher is in long term recovery and credits a wonderful support system and access to resources as critical to his recovery.

Jonathan Michael Rosen, MS, CIH, FAIHA

Jonathan is the Principal Consultant for AJ Rosen & Associates LLC, providing occupational safety and industrial hygiene services to labor unions, government agencies, and organizations throughout the U.S. Jonathan works for the National Clearinghouse for Worker Safety & Health Training, National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Education and Training Program. In that capacity he has developed worker and leadership training programs on resilience, stress, trauma, opioids and the workplace, and infection prevention and control. Jonathan served as Director of the Occupational Health & Safety Department for NYS Public Employees Federation, AFL-CIO for 22 years. Jonathan has been co-investigator on several federal NIOSH intervention research grants. Jonathan was one of four guest editors for New Solutions Journal of Environmental & Occupational Health Policy special issue on Opioids and the Workplace, Risk Factors and Solutions, Vol. 31, #3, November 2021. Jonathan completed a master’s degree in industrial health at the University of Michigan and is a Certified Industrial Hygienist.

Jennifer Zelnick, MSW, ScD

Jennifer Zelnick, Professor & Social Welfare Policy Chair at the Touro College Graduate School of Social Work, holds a master’s degree in social work, and a doctorate in public health, and conducts research in the U.S. and South Africa. Dr. Zelnick is a public health social worker committed to bringing social work skills into public health research and services. Her research and scholarship investigate topics of importance to the health and social service workplace, beginning with the premise that quality health/social services and successful outcomes depend on sustainable work environments. She is trained in community organizing and occupational health and safety policy. Her research is geared towards useful input into policy development.

Carlos Roberts, MPA, LMSW

Carlos Roberts holds an LMSW and is a Doctoral Candidate enrolled at Simmons University. Carlos is a therapist and a HARP Social Worker for a Medicaid-funded program, with 20 years of frontline experience working with individuals affected by HIV, homelessness, and mistrust of the social system. Carlos utilizes DBT, CBT, systems theory, and person-in-environment strategies. Carlos holds an MPA, MSW, Master CASAC credentials, and an LMSW.