Kim Connor

Family Peer Support Specialist

Parents of Addicted Youth Group Facilitator 

Kim and her husband, Ricky, are Melbourne natives and graduates of Eau Gallie High School (Classes of '94 and '92).  They have two teenage sons, Tripp and Reece.  

In his 10th grade year, after struggling with anxiety (for which he was already receiving counseling), their youngest son, Reece, began using marijuana in many different forms to self-medicate and developed a severe clinical depression, suicidal ideation and eventually a suicide attempt that brought his addiction behavior out in the open.  Not long after, Reece went to a residential inpatient rehab facility for adolescents.  Because Reece was only 15 years old and this new plight was just starting to be a force in their family, Kim and Ricky had a very hard time finding support for their situation as the parent of a young addict. Many of those at established support groups for families struggling with addiction are dealing with much older family members with much longer stories.  Through a friend’s podcast, Kim found Drew.  Not only did Drew work with Reece individually, he also provided counseling to the family as a unit.  Fast forward and Reece is not only still clean and in recovery, but he is a Peer Support Specialist for BRIC, working with adolescents when the situation is a good fit for his experience.  Fast forward a little further and Drew trusted Kim and Ricky to facilitate a support group for parents of young addicts.  The group is totally peer led and provides a place to vent and know that this seemingly solitary struggle as the parent of an adolescent or young adult in addiction does not have be done alone.

As a family, the Connors are committed to changing the stigma surrounding mental health and substance abuse in young people by being authentic about their situation – how it came to be, how it affected each member of the family individually and the family as a whole, how they got through it and how they continue to deal with it every day.