GILPIN COUNTY - The nonprofit Advocates for Recovery Colorado has been serving as a Recovery Community Organization since 2001, focusing on recovery solutions rather than addiction challenges.

For the last year, they’ve been developing their latest program for Colorado.

In January 2025, Sean Hedden was hired as the regional manager of the new Foothills program, which focuses on Gilpin, Clear Creek, and Jefferson Counties. The organization currently hosts programs in Denver, Boulder, Durango, Sterling, Aurora, and other Colorado communities.

The program is heading into its second year of funding, and the organization has brought on Lindsay Gianola as Gilpin’s Peer Recovery Coach. As a resident with lived experience in active and sustained recovery, she will meet participants in the program, share her experience, and guide and support them.

Coaches are also trained to guide based on a participant’s scope of recovery. Coaches will focus their guidance on each individual's journey, whether the participant wants to get sober, reduce their drinking, or find a supportive place to live.

Coaches also host and facilitate social events, such as arts and crafts, potlucks, and all-recovery meetings. This is meant to encourage groups and communities to connect and celebrate their experiences and journeys together.

Hedden finds developing the new program exciting yet challenging, he said. The program manages three counties with different communities and settings, but Hedden has found it incredibly rewarding to be able to develop connections with each community.

One of the biggest champions of the program’s work is Alisa Witt, Director of Gilpin County Public Health. In her three and a half years in the position, she has known four people who died from substance use disorder, isolated from their community.

Hedden champions community connection and shared experiences in the program to prevent isolation like this, encouraging direct support and understanding in recovery instead of stigma and isolation.

Advocates for Recovery Colorado will host a Gilpin Recovery Ambassador Training in the Gilpin County Library, located at 15131 Colorado 119, on Wednesday, October 22, 2025, starting at 12:30 p.m. The training is open to all members of the public.

To RSVP for the training and learn more about the organization, visit advocatesforrecovery.org.