Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness

Since its founding in 2006, USARA (Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness) has served thousands of individuals recovering from the effects of substance use disorders on the person, families, and the community. Recognized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, USARA is Utah’s premier recovery community organization.

Mission: USARA connects & inspires communities to advocate for addiction recovery.
Vision: We envision a Utah where Recovery Community and Connection are recognized as the most valuable asset for people to recover from addiction.
Values: purpose, compassion, innovation, person-centered, fidelity, opportunity
CASE: Celebrate, Advocate, Support, and Empower

Making a CASE for Recovery

Our focus involves mobilizing individual and community resources to promote recovery, not specific to clinical services or model of care. We celebrate recovery by hosting various events in the community and publicly sharing successes of individuals in recovery and organizations in our community. One of the founding principles of USARA is that we celebrate all pathways to recovery. This principle is embodied in our leaders, volunteers, staff, policies and programs.

We envision a day when public and private policies have been implemented at the local, state, and federal levels to help individuals and families get the help they need to recover, including access to effective care including health and wellness, treatment, peer support and other recovery services. Through advocacy, we can change policies that discriminate against people in or seeking recovery.

At USARA, we focus on the reality of long-term recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs for individuals and their families in Utah. As a recovery community organization, our goal is simple: to enhance the quantity and quality of support available to people seeking and experiencing long-term recovery from addiction.

USARA empowers people in recovery by providing message trainings for people wanting to share their recovery with others, providing a public platform for trained recovering individuals to share their recovery story, reaching out to our community to share the message that recovery is possible, and assisting people in recovery to find meaning and purpose in their lives through volunteering and activism.

In addition to this, we strive to:  

  • Develop leaders that will create opportunities for people in recovery, family members, friends and allies to express their collective voice, learn new skills and responsibilities, and provide a forum for community service.
  • Advocate for meaningful representation for people in long-term recovery and family members on issues that affect their lives.
  • Assess needs related to the adequacy and quality of local treatment, recovery support services and other health and social services.
  • Assess strengths, assets, and resources available in the community to support recovery.
  • Educate the public, policy makers and service providers about the prevalence and multiple pathways of addiction recovery.
  • Developing recovery resources and recovery events by expanding public support for addiction treatment, recovery support services, and recovery advocacy while cultivating volunteerism with local communities of recovery and events.