Case Study: True Colors Recovery 2025 Advocacy Partnership and Toolkit

At Collaborate Consulting, we believe that the people most affected by Oregon’s behavioral health and recovery systems should help shape them. “Nothing about us without us.” That belief guided our partnership with True Colors Recovery to build an advocacy toolkit grounded in lived experience… so LGBTQ+ people in recovery aren’t treated as an afterthought, but as leaders, storytellers, and systems-changers.

Client
True Colors Recovery -  a Portland-based recovery organization built by and for LGBTQ+ people with lived experience.

Year
2025

Final Report

The Problem

Oregon’s recovery landscape is under real strain, and LGBTQ+ people are often left navigating systems that don’t fit or feel safe. At the same time, public skepticism around drug policy has increased (especially in Oregon), and LGBTQ+ programs have faced funding cuts even as more people flee to the Pacific Northwest seeking safety.

Oregon Health Authority (OHA) Office of Recovery and Resilience supported True Colors to build a stronger network of consumer advocates, ensuring that people with lived experience help shape the behavioral health system. 

The challenge was clear: turn lived experience into organized, strategic advocacy, and do it in a way that felt accessible to community members, not policy insiders.  

Our Approach

Collaborate Consulting partnered with True Colors to combine three things:

  1. Community listening (to understand what was actually happening on the ground)

  2. Advocacy education (so participants could connect their experiences to systems change)

  3. A practical toolkit (so the work could keep moving after the trainings ended)

The solution delivered

A field-ready Advocacy Toolkit that:

  • Names the most common systemic barriers LGBTQ+ people face in recovery in Oregon

  • Offers four concrete policy recommendations for OHA consideration

  • Maps Oregon’s pathways for policy change (legislative, administrative rulemaking, ballot measures)

  • Gives community members practical “tools for action,” including a storytelling framework and steps for testimony/public comment

  • Outlines recommended next steps to sustain momentum and grow advocacy power over time 

Why this mattered to the client

True Colors didn’t just need a report—they needed a launchpad: shared language, shared priorities, and tools community members could actually use. The project supported True Colors’ commitment to honor many pathways to recovery (including harm reduction and medication-assisted treatment), while still pushing for safer systems and better access. 

Services featured

  • Community listening + qualitative synthesis

  • Workshop design and facilitation

  • Policy research and strategy

  • Writing and toolkit development in collaboration with client leadership 

This is what Collaborate Consulting does best. We build bold, human-centered assessments that elevate marginalized voices and deliver concrete solutions.