House Meetings: Creating an Agenda

Develop a structured agenda in advance to keep the meeting focused and productive. 

We all know what it is like to be caught in a meeting with no direction, with no one knows what is supposed to be happening or what we are discussing.  Having an agenda can keep items focused.

Be sure to include time on your agenda for residents to share with one another.  There are many creative ways that this can happen, but the most simple way is to just spend time having residents talk about their experiences during the week, and what they felt was positive and/or negative about their weeks.

Also, be sure to include time to celebrate resident successes.  This is an important element of the National Alliance of Recovery Residences standards. And a simple way to meet this standard is to acknowledge and celebrate resident successes at house meetings.  This can be as simple as clapping for them and announcing their achievements, it also could be a party or other celebration.

A recovery housing program can be creative depending on the needs and culture of your community.