Julianne Griffin, CPS.
Recovery mentor, community builder and the founder of Blank Space Recovery and Swift Steps®. She built the room she couldn't find.
The story
A stadium lot full of strangers.
Julianne had been in recovery since 2016 and had spent a lot of it feeling like she was performing it. The rooms that were supposed to help didn't reflect her back. Then she stood in a stadium lot full of strangers trading bracelets and singing the same words, and realized it was the first place in years she hadn't had to explain herself to anyone.
She'd already trained as a Certified Peer Specialist through the Pennsylvania Certification Board. She'd already spent years inside Philadelphia city government managing budgets for corrections, finance and public health. She already wrote The Sober Swiftie for The Sober Curator. Swift Steps® is what happened when those three things ended up in one room.
The first meeting was March 2024. Today it's a community app, a meeting every day of the week, a fifty five week curriculum and a scholarship fund, all peer led and all built on the idea that healing is not one size fits all.
September 1, 2026
Ten years. At the moment.
Sobriety date September 1. This year it turned ten. The cake says "at the moment" because that's the only honest way to say it, and the cupcakes say the rest.
What she believes
Three things.
Belonging comes first.
People don't recover in rooms where they feel judged. They recover where they feel seen.
Any pathway counts.
Abstinence, moderation, harm reduction, medication, therapy. The question is never which road, only whether you have company on it.
Peers, not saviors.
Lived experience is the credential that matters in the room. Clinicians matter too, and she'll always say so.
The credential
Certified Peer Specialist.
A CPS is a person with lived experience of recovery who has completed a state approved training program and certification exam, agrees to a code of ethical conduct, and completes continuing education to keep the credential active. Peer support, alongside clinical care, never in place of it.
Lived experience
In recovery since 2016. Sobriety date September 1. The credential requires it, and the room runs on it.
Trained and certified
Pennsylvania Certification Board approved peer specialist training, certification exam, ethics code, continuing education to maintain.
Boundaried
A CPS does not diagnose, treat, prescribe or assess. Every Swift Steps® member is told that plainly, and every meeting opens with the crisis card.
Background
Fifteen years of running things that have to work.
City of Philadelphia
Budget Officer, Department of Licenses and Inspections. Earlier roles across Corrections, Finance and the Department of Public Health's AIDS Activities Coordinating Office, managing city, state and federal grant budgets for public health programs.
Education
BA in Business Administration, Gwynedd Mercy University, 2014.
Nonprofit boards
Board experience with animal welfare organizations including Your Pitbull and You, Women's Animal Center and Love Four Paws with ACCT Philly.
Writing
Author of The Sober Swiftie, a recurring column on The Sober Curator.
Speaking and press
The Philadelphia Inquirer, NBC10 Philadelphia, Philadelphia Today, Daily Mail, The Sober Curator, The Reyes Reflection and The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Presenting at the commUNITY Conference, Philadelphia, October 2026.
The organization
Swift Steps® and Healing Through the Eras® are registered trademarks of Blank Space Recovery LLC. Founded March 2024. Legal counsel on intellectual property.
About Blank Space Recovery →Work with Julianne
Speaking, mentoring, program design.
For podcasts, panels, treatment programs and organizations building peer support. Or just to say hi.