Evan Cochuyt Email & Phone Number

I have been drawn to working within or volunteering for companies who are registered 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. Since 2015 I have worked or volunteered with agencies whose mission is to improve the quality of life of persons living with HIV and to reduce the barriers to community access of essential HIV & STI education, testing, prevention and treatment resources. Since my return to the Space Coast after graduating from UCF with my B.S. in Psychology, I have also sat as a committee member on the Brevard Prevention Coalition's Treatment & Recovery Subcommittee of the Opioid Misuse Taskforce. In September 2022, Brevard Prevention Coalition hosted the inaugural Brevard Recovery Festival which served as a gathering of various for-profit and non-profit organizations dedicated to helping the community address the Opioid Epidemic by ensuring treatment and recovery resources are known about and are readily available within the community. September 2022 also marked the release of Recovery Bytes Testimonial Series, directed and produced by myself as a project for Brevard Prevention Coalition. These video testimonials are 'byte-sized' messages of hope in recovery from dependence on substances, intended to be consumed digitally with real community members in recovery themselves being willing to drop the coveted mask of anonymity and let their brief story be a beacon of hope to the still struggling addicts among us. This project has been renewed going into 2023 and the hopes are to double the previous year's participation. In my professional as well as my personal life, I am a major proponent for harm reduction measures being implemented in our approach at combatting substance dependency and addiction. We need to be able to meet people where they're at along the recovery continuum from a position that always values and affirms the life of the still struggling addict. A shift in perspective with resources aimed at lessening harm to anyone using harmful substances shifts the still struggling addict's perspective from abject disregard for oneself toward a more sustainable mindset of incremental instances of self-love and regard by not doing something as harmful, this time. This continued self-image restructuring using society approved and community delivered self-preserving alternatives should result in the addict eventually being willing to consider rehabilitation and recovery. Over time, with harm reduction measures, the struggling addict is able to finally able to see value in themselves, their existence; a complete 180 from where they began.