Vendor Spotlight: Meet Sober Escorts

For 15 years, we’ve had the honor of serving individuals with complex mental health needs. Our clients’ stories and backgrounds span a wide range of situations, which sometimes requires us to come up with creative and outside of the box solutions. One of our guiding principles is that everyone, regardless of ability, deserves to be cared for with dignity and respect. At Help in the Home, we treat our clients like family and that value extends to our valued network of partners as well. 

This month, we’d like to introduce you to Sober Escorts!

The beginning of our partnership

For the last three years, Sober Escorts has been a reliable source of support when a client’s needs go beyond what our team is able to provide. We first utilized Sober Escorts in 2018, when one of our Supported Living Community (SLC) clients needed to have live-in, one-on-one support, to provide a higher level of care to ensure his safety. Thanks to our long-term and collaborative relationship with Sober Escorts, we’ve been able to support clients that we would not otherwise have been able to.

It was very clear from the beginning that the companions Sober Escorts sent to support our clients shared similar values as the Help in the Home team. Early on, we were able to see the compassionate, healthy, and stable relationship they fostered that prioritized our clients needs as well as their growth towards independence. This is an important detail to note because we’ve experienced agencies that did not have experience in working with individuals with severe mental illness and didn’t have the heart or passion needed. 

One of the things we’ve appreciated the most about Sober Escorts is their willingness to jump into the chaos of a moment and work alongside our team. They’ve treated projects large and small with the same dedication and attention to detail each and every time.

Developing our partnership with Sober Escorts was a no brainer!

How Help in the Home partners with Sober Escorts

Our relationship with Sober Escorts has evolved over the years, ranging from transports, companion services, coaching, and case management. Currently, they are providing a live-in companion for one of our SLC members. 

An additional benefit of working with a professional network such as Sober Escorts, is that it allows us to work together and think outside the box when unique client care situations arise. We have had some really incredible success stories over the years, one being of a client that was able to transition from a step down care plan to a totally independent, happy and stable environment where he was able to reintegrate into his community. The trust and rapport built between our teams, specifically the clients and their companions, was incredibly beautiful to be a part of together.

Why we love working with Sober Escorts

One of the things we love about working with Sober Escorts is that they are able to help save lives when the system doesn’t. Their mission is to do whatever it takes to assist a client and/or family member to engage and remain in the recovery process. 

Over the holidays, we had a client in crisis who was being discharged from the hospital, not because she was psychiatrically stable, but because she tested positive for COVID-19. We had 12-hours to find a placement where she would be safe, and Sober Escorts was the only service that was willing to support her. They worked with us to create a solution to a nearly impossible situation. They stayed with her in a hotel, where she had a separate room to isolate, but was still able to be monitored and supported until she was able to be rehospitalized. We were so impressed with the availability Sober Escorts had to support us in creating a plan and finding a companion for this client, who would have otherwise been discharged, to her apartment with all of her medications and no support.

Sober Escorts, Russ Nasoff summarized it best: 

“People with SMI are the most rewarding population to work with. Of all the people I have worked with, this population are the most innocent victims of mental illness. I’m able to see the amazing people inside and am also able to see when their brains are hijacked through no fault of their own.”

There is a certain language that you speak when you work with the SMI population and you can tell when people and a company truly have a passion and competency for doing this work.

Get to know Sober Escorts

Founded in 2004, Founder and President, Rick Parrish, formed Sobers Escorts, Inc, after witnessing friends successfully complete a treatment program, only to relapse within the first few days after discharge. He was motivated to form a company that would safely accompany a client in early recovery from rehab to sober living, and stay with the person for the first few days or weeks. He instinctively knew that such a service could make a difference between sobriety and relapse, or even death. 

Rick Parrish understands the addicted mindset and wants to make a difference in the field of recovery. By meeting clients upon discharge and getting them to their first meeting, he knew these services could prove instrumental in the client’s ability to sustain their sobriety. Rick helped the clients clean out their homes, offices, and cars and helped get them grounded in recovery in their own geographical area. Rick’s dedication to helping people remain clean and sober, connected, stable, and walking through a healthy lifestyle is what drives him. His company, Sober Escorts, Inc., provides Professional Addiction Recovery and co-occurring Mental Health Services both nationally and internationally, and is poised to do whatever it takes to get a client into treatment and support a recovery path that fits the client’s individual needs. 

Services Sober Escorts Provides

Sober and Mental Health Supportive Transports

Sober Escorts assist and accompany clients to treatment following an intervention or decision to enter treatment, between treatment programs and care providers, and/or back home from treatment. Transitions to, from, and in between are sensitive and crucial periods in successful recovery. They are very familiar with the fear and uncertainty associated with the decision to admit oneself, family member, or client to addiction and/or mental health treatment.

 

Sober Companion Services

A Sober Companion is a 24/7 service for clients as they face the challenges ahead. Their Sober Companions program helps maintain a client’s sobriety or recovery path in the “real world,” outside of the safe and structured addiction or mental health treatment center environment. They help in a myriad of ways:  

  • They will prepare living space for sobriety
  • They encourage regular sleep habits, fitness and wellness routines
  • They help plan a healthy diet
  • They transport to meetings and appointments
  • They encourage participation in activities happening in your recovery community to develop a network of positive people who will support your recovery
  • They help develop daily practices that will help prevent relapse
  • They are there to talk with and share concerns with
  • They encourage actions that build self-esteem

 

Recovery Coaching

Recovery Coaches, also known as Sober Coaches, provide part-time support through encouragement, accountability, wisdom, and experience. They help clients implement the skills they’ve learned in treatment and translate those lessons into the real world to identify potential danger before it arises. They help clients identify goals and implement specific action plans to achieve their dreams and develop a sober/recovery lifestyle. Coaching can be set up for just a few hours a week, or for every afternoon, or for eight hours a day/7 days a week—the schedule can be tailored to the client’s specific needs and goals.

 

Interventions

Since 2004, Sober Escorts, Inc. has provided full-service, professional intervention services. Their interventionists understand personally how addiction and mental health challenges can cause broken relationships and distrust among those closest to the addict or identified client. They know just how to effectively manage an intervention. It is a delicate process, so to achieve a successful intervention it is imperative to have an interventionist who is adept at reading the client’s gestures and comments correctly, asking the right questions, and timing each step properly.

 

Case Management

Their years of experience providing services in addiction, mental health recovery, and treatment have shown that many clients greatly benefit from having a dedicated Case Manager. An experienced single point of contact who coordinates services on a client’s behalf between treatment centers, sober living facilities, therapists, coaches, doctors, lawyers, court systems, hospitals, pharmacies, transportation companies, and other professional service providers, helps a client stay successfully in recovery. Their expert case managers consider the unique needs of each client, crafting an individual plan that will best serve the client.

 

Treatment Assessment

Sober Escorts employs degreed, licensed and/or certified professionals to assess the client, and then match the client with the right treatment facility for them. Their staff also comes with many years of practical experience in the recovery field. They carefully assess each client in order to place the client effectively for the most successful outcome.

__________

We are so grateful for the work that they do and their partnership.

 

Stay connected with Sober Escorts!

Phone

Main: 352-236-0127

Toll Free: 877-218-3800

Email: wecare@soberescorts.com

Website: www.soberescorts.com

Social Media

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Sign up for our newsletter

Be the first to get the inside scoop in our monthly newsletters. Personal notes from the founders, team spotlights, and more! Sign up below.

[mc4wp_form id=1884]