What to Expect from Vermont’s Recovery Friendly Workplace Program
Becoming a Recovery Friendly Workplace is a practical process of learning, reflection, and organizational growth.
The program helps employers examine how their workplace culture, policies, practices, benefits, and employee resources affect people living with substance use disorder, addiction, recovery, or the impact of someone else’s substance use. Employers then build on what is already working and identify meaningful changes that fit their particular workplace.
You do not need to have everything figured out before you begin. Every workplace starts somewhere, and the process is designed to support progress—not perfection.
What is a Recovery Friendly Workplace?
A Recovery Friendly Workplace intentionally creates a workplace culture in which people affected by substance use, addiction, and recovery are treated with dignity and can access support while continuing to meet clear workplace expectations.
Being recovery friendly does not mean overlooking performance concerns, compromising safety, or asking managers to become counselors. It means creating a workplace where support and accountability work together—and where leaders have the understanding, policies, practices, and resources needed to respond thoughtfully and consistently.
Certification recognizes the intentional work an organization has done to create that kind of workplace.
The Recovery Friendly Workplace journey
Although every workplace will approach the work differently, the journey generally includes the following stages.
1. Explore your starting point
After submitting a Letter of Interest, your organization will complete the Certification Readiness Assessment.
This initial assessment helps you reflect on your workplace’s current strengths, needs, capacity, and readiness to begin. It also helps VAMHAR understand what guidance may be most useful to your organization.
The Certification Readiness Assessment is not a test, a certification application, or the formal baseline assessment used later to measure progress.
2. Gather the people who will lead the work
Your organization will identify a leadership or implementation team to guide the work internally. This might include people with formal decision-making authority as well as others whose knowledge, relationships, or influence will be important to the process.
The team will participate in an onboarding meeting with VAMHAR. During that meeting, we will review the journey, clarify roles and expectations, introduce the learning and certification systems, and help your organization prepare to begin.
Your organization will also designate one primary point of contact to serve as its liaison with VAMHAR.
3. Learn and reflect
Members of the leadership or implementation team will work through asynchronous learning and guided reflection activities. These can be completed around the demands of your workplace rather than at a single required time.
The learning is designed to help leaders notice what already exists within their organization, consider the experiences employees may be having, and explore how everyday leadership decisions shape workplace culture.
The process does not ask every workplace to implement the same solutions. It provides a shared framework that each organization can apply within its own size, industry, workforce, resources, and regulatory environment.
4. Connect and learn with other employers
The program includes three required live learning and peer-connection sessions. Your organization’s primary point of contact is required to attend, although other members of the leadership or implementation team may also be invited to participate when helpful.
These sessions create space to learn with other Vermont employers, reflect on what is happening within your organization, share practical questions, and consider how the program’s ideas can be applied in different workplace settings.
Additional details, including the schedule and format, will be provided before your organization begins the program.
5. Put the learning into practice
As your organization moves through the program, your team will identify and carry out practical steps that strengthen the workplace.
The certification framework is organized around four interconnected areas:
Culture
Hiring, retention, and advancement
Benefits
Education and awareness
The work might include strengthening employee resources, reviewing policies, improving how information is communicated, preparing supervisors to respond more confidently, or creating opportunities for employees to learn about substance use disorder and recovery.
Some organizations will already have many recovery-friendly practices in place. Others will identify several areas they want to build. The goal is not identical implementation across workplaces, but intentional progress within each organization’s context.
6. Apply for certification
Throughout the journey, your organization will document the work it completes. The primary point of contact will coordinate the required information and submit certification materials through VAMHAR’s online learning and certification system.
Certification is not based on whether a workplace is perfect. It recognizes that an organization has made a meaningful commitment, taken concrete action, and established the policies, practices, resources, and cultural foundations needed to be a Recovery Friendly Workplace.
Once certified, your organization will receive materials to help recognize and communicate its achievement. Certification is valid for two years.
7. Continue growing
Certification is an important milestone, but it is not the end of the work.
Workplace cultures change over time. Staff members come and go, policies evolve, new needs emerge, and organizations continue learning. Certified employers are encouraged to keep reflecting, strengthening their practices, and participating in the broader Recovery Friendly Workplace community.
The renewal process every two years provides an opportunity to recognize continued growth and identify what comes next.
Who should participate?
This work is most successful when it is supported by a small group of people who understand the organization and have the influence needed to carry changes forward.
Depending on the workplace, that group might include:
Senior leaders or business owners
Human resources staff
Supervisors or managers
Employee representatives
People responsible for benefits, safety, training, or workplace policy
Employees with relevant knowledge or lived experience
Not everyone needs to have the same role. Some participants may have decision-making authority, while others bring important knowledge about workplace culture and the employee experience.
What does the primary point of contact do?
The primary point of contact serves as the link between your organization and VAMHAR.
This person will generally:
Receive program communication and share relevant information internally
Help coordinate the leadership or implementation team
Attend the three required live sessions
Keep track of program requirements and organizational progress
Coordinate questionnaires, evaluations, and certification materials
Contact VAMHAR when the organization needs guidance
The point of contact coordinates the process but is not expected to create workplace-wide change alone. Becoming a Recovery Friendly Workplace is a shared organizational effort.
How much time does the process take?
Most employers work toward certification over approximately 6–12 months.
The exact timeline depends on the organization’s starting point, size, capacity, and the changes it chooses to make. The primarily asynchronous structure allows teams to move through much of the learning and implementation around their workplace schedules.
There will be established milestones and three required live sessions, but organizations will have flexibility in how they organize much of the work between them.
What support does VAMHAR provide?
Although much of the program is asynchronous, employers are not expected to navigate the process without support.
VAMHAR provides:
An onboarding meeting for the leadership or implementation team
Asynchronous learning and guided reflection activities
Three required live learning and peer-connection sessions
Practical tools, examples, and workplace resources
Guidance on certification requirements and documentation
Opportunities to ask questions and receive assistance
Connections to recovery resources and the wider community of participating employers
The goal is to provide enough structure and support to keep the work moving while allowing each organization to make decisions that fit its own workplace.
Understanding the different assessments
Employers will encounter several forms of reflection and assessment during the program. Each serves a different purpose.
Starting Point Questionnaire
Completed near the beginning of the journey, this helps the employer and VAMHAR understand the workplace’s current starting point regarding Recovery Friendly Workplace practices. It is not a test, formal baseline, or certification application. Some employers find that they actually already have some pieces in place.
Baseline assessment
Completed after the organization enters the program, the baseline establishes a clearer picture of current workplace understanding and experience. It provides a starting point against which later progress can be considered.
Follow-up or progress assessment
Completed later in the journey, this helps the organization and VAMHAR understand what may have changed through participation in the program.
Certification documentation
Certification materials show how the organization has put its commitment into practice across the program’s four areas. This is distinct from the assessments used to understand readiness or measure change.
If you haven’t filled out a Letter of Interest yet, you can do that here: