About Us
Meet Ginger Ross
Founder of CHOICES
Mindset Coach | Educator | Speaker | Veteran
CHOICES was founded in 2018 by Ginger Ross. She has authored all the training courses offered by CHOICES. She is passionate about educating guardian ad litem and court-appointed special advocates on addiction behaviors, recovery, and emotional abuse. Ginger has over eight years of experience helping people with substance use disorders.
A Challenging Period
Ginger began her career in publishing when she founded NH Wedding Magazine in 1998. After life’s twists and turns, Ginger found herself a survivor of an abusive relationship and recovering from alcoholism. She went through a five-year divorce process and learned the challenges within the court system. After she overcame this period, she began working for New Hampshire Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counselors Association (NHADACA) in 2014 at the onset of the peer recovery coach movement.
Discovery of Her Purpose
In March 2014, the ED of the NHADACA sent Ginger to the Recovery Coach Academy and Trainer of Trainers. This is where she found her passion and purpose. She shadowed Jim Wuelfing at her first training and began to get requests to do Recovery Coach Academies around New Hampshire.
By August 2016, Ginger was trained in Recovery Coach Academy, Ethics for Peer Support and Suicide Prevention – NAMI Model, Recognize and Connect. One training was still required for New Hampshire certification, but it was tough to find.
Meeting the Demand for Training
While employed at NHADACA, she fielded numerous phone calls from people seeking peer recovery coach training. Ginger saw an immediate and urgent need and set out to address it by creating her first HIV/AIDS training course for peer coaches in 2016.
That same year, Ginger launched a new state-funded program through Granite Pathways, called Regional Access Point Services (RAPS), which made peer coaches available throughout New Hampshire. Simultaneously, she continued providing peer recovery coach training.
By January 2017, the demand for peer recovery coach training was so high that Ginger founded NH Recovery Coach Academy. The academy offered the full library of required training courses to become a Certified Recovery Support Worker (CRSW) in New Hampshire.
Improved Training Courses
Ginger was certified to train the NAMI Suicide Prevention Recognize & Connect training and found that peer coaches needed more than community-focused training. After certification, she created Suicide Prevention for Non-Clinical Workers in 2018. Ginger is a core trainer for Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) and has been training this model since 2014.
In 2017, Ginger realized the need for an improved ethics training course for peer coaches and created CHOICES Ethical Foundations for Peer Recovery Coaches. This training course has been delivered in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire. It was also provided to NHADACA, the former agency where she began her wellness job.
In 2019, Ginger created her own peer recovery coach training after working as a program manager for some state-funded peer coach programs, specifically Sober Parenting Journey and Strength to Succeed. She developed this training course while also still providing other training courses.
Ginger’s program has been accepted by the New Hampshire State Department of Corrections. She has taught in the prison system to train peer coaches to improve outcomes in the jail while preparing residents with work-related skills for re-entry into civilian society.
Education
Ginger has a BA in Psychology, focusing on forensics. She trains around New England and Oregon. She will also train in Arkansas soon.
United in Providing Better Courses
Ginger and her team train all over the country with CHOICES. They are currently designing a recovery coach training course for law enforcement called Recovery 50. In addition, CHOICES currently collaborates with staff member Alex Fidalgo on a bilingual peer recovery coach and ethics training.
Trainers:
- Virtual - Suicide Prevention
- August 2 & 3, 2023
- 1:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. EST
Our Courses:
- Peer Recovery Coach Training
- Ethical Foundations for Peer Recovery Coaches (16 Hours)
- Suicide Prevention for Non-Clinical Workers
- HIV/AIDS & Bloodborne Pathogens
- Motivational Interviewing Foundations
- And More
Consulting
Ginger has a strong reputation for designing quality, relatable, and intentional content. She has worked as a curriculum consultant for projects in Nevada, Colorado, and Florida. She also personally created all the curricula in the CHOICES library.
Curriculum with Intention
Ginger’s design focuses on the overall course blueprint, mapping content to learning objectives, including how to develop a course outline and build the course. Each learning objective is met with assessment strategies, exercises, content, subject matter analysis, and interactive activities.
The design expertise does not stop with substance use disorder and recovery. Ginger thrives in creating content for personal development for individuals, small businesses, or large corporations. Whatever course you need, reach out to Ginger first.
Public Speaking
Book Ginger as Your Keynote Speaker Today
Ginger Ross is an exceptional keynote speaker who delivers memorable presentations on addiction and recovery. Guests leave astonished and wondering why they didn’t know this information before. The information she presents is invaluable for communicating with individuals with substance use disorder.
Ginger shares her personal experience of becoming an alcoholic at the age of 42. She suffered from emotional duress and stress caused by trying to create a picture-perfect family, which led her to self-medicate.
Ginger’s keynote presentation on addiction and recovery will assuredly have your attendees talking about this subject in a more positive light. It also improves relationships with individuals with substance use disorder.