ThreeSixty Journalism: A road to recovery: how one woman’s resilience has paved a way forward for all

Mary Kay Riendeau began to use marijuana alcohol and cigarettes at only after surviving several instances of sexual violence Information were not abundant in the s and Riendeau s trauma response dangerously spiraled into substance abuse that lasted years Since she set out on the path to recovery in Riendeau has refused to let the pain of her past define her future In current times as the department head of addiction studies at Minnesota North College-Mesabi Range she is helping widen access to addiction counseling services in rural areas across the state You know why people use commented Riendeau The pain of life She says expanding access to addiction counseling will help people get the promotion they need According to a Minnesota Department of Vitality description residents of rural areas seeking mental strength and chemical dependency medicine typically progress over three times longer to access care compared with urban patients The same overview shows that of the alcohol and drug counselors across the state only work in isolated rural areas Only work in small towns Such disparities contribute to wellness inequity Faced with declining healthcare and a looming prison sentence Riendeau made the tough decision to stop using and turn her life around years ago She longed to show up better as a mother but also as the individual she knew she was under the shadow of her addiction So she enrolled in college Mary Kay Riendeau far left works with students enrolled in the Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor venture at Minnesota North College-Mesabi Range Yasmin Yassin I m years old she explained Am I going to let sexual violence ruin the rest of my life There had to be a time in there where I made a decision Her college Minnesota North College Mesabi Range is home to an expansive Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor activity LADC which was established in the s The scheme aims to effectively train students to enter the addiction-recovery field throughout the state by Zoom to remove the limitations that prevent a great number of from completing their tuition Rural areas such as the Mesabi Range have unfailingly faced great challenges with distance affordability and accessibility to addiction counseling Minnesota North College s venture addresses the shortage of addiction counselors in the area by integrating a real-world problem-solving curriculum into the classroom Riendeau was a graduate of the venture and started teaching in the campaign in In her mentor retired and she has been the department head since then There were only nine in the operation that year Even with the impacts that it was making this shortage persisted in her region so she sought out to expand existing initiatives Riendeau worked as a full-time in-person LADC instructor at her alma mater for three years until she began to broaden the initiative s efforts by using tool In she launched free Zoom panels accessible to people across the state From Grand Portage to the Iron Range she says these Zoom rooms have allowed the effort to reach thousands who have been touched by addiction This is a way of putting people together in a neighborhood of recovery she commented Healed communities can excel and do things which expands the empowerment of people Riendeau has seen more and more students engage with the LADC venture during her time as an instructor The undertaking s instructors presently oversee the schooling of over students Thousands more have been licensed and are now functioning in the field of addiction work since her early beginnings Angela Tomassoni left Indigenous grant assistant at Minnesota North College-Mesabi Range and Mary Kay Riendeau department head of addiction studies at Minnesota North College-Mesabi Range work to widen access to addiction counseling in rural Minnesota Brian Wiedeke Graduate Angela Tomassoni who has faced addiction in the past gets goosebumps when reflecting on the activity s impact She announced it has transformed and saved countless people including her She now serves as the venture s Indigenous grant coordinator and helps to oversee specific of the millions of grant dollars that the effort receives These degrees and this experience was something that nobody could take away from me Tomassoni announced Giving back and staying busy is a huge thing Riendeau never anticipated her efforts reaching so far but is grateful After all her main purpose in everything she has set out on has been to touch lives Funding cuts threaten access to addiction services in rural communities but Riendeau says her commitment is unwavering We re at a different time politically But does it affect us I m not going to let it she commented As long as we re still there there is still a voice fighting for addicts Additional reporting by Legend Primus Roseville High School and Amelia Mohamud Delano High School About this description This story was produced as part of ThreeSixty Journalism s Multimedia Storytelling Institute for high school students in partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota which financially sponsors the camp and supports story sourcing ThreeSixty Journalism is a multimedia storytelling effort for Minnesota youth Grounded in the principles of journalism and focused on contributing to more accurate narratives and representative newsrooms ThreeSixty offers technical ethical and entrepreneurial training for fulfilling careers in storytelling and civic leadership It has been housed at the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St Thomas since