The Founder
Julianne Griffin, CPS.She built the room she couldn't find.
Certified Peer Specialist, in recovery since 2016, fifteen years running budgets for the City of Philadelphia and the author of The Sober Swiftie for The Sober Curator. Jewels to everyone in the room.
The story
Performing recovery, then finding it.
2016. Sent to treatment.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 parking 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 built Swift Steps® as a queer woman in recovery who spent years in rooms that weren't built for her.
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'd already grown a TikTok to 21,000 followers making recovery content, and learned what people actually respond to when nobody is grading them. Swift Steps® is what happened when those three things ended up in one room. The Sober Swiftie column came after, once Blank Space Recovery and Swift Steps® were already up and running.
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.
Step by step, from town to town
Ten years, still showing up.
Sober at the show
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.
Nobody asks your day count.
Sober curious counts. Day one counts. Day three thousand counts. You don't earn a seat here, you take one.
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. The role is defined by what it is and what it isn't: 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.
Swift Steps®
Founder and lead facilitator since March 2024. A peer led recovery community for Swifties: a meeting every day of the week, the Healing Through the Eras® curriculum, a community app, a scholarship fund and a Facebook group of about 1,600. Featured by The Philadelphia Inquirer, NBC10 and the Daily Mail.
About Swift Steps® →Blank Space Recovery LLC
Founder and owner. The peer led recovery practice behind Swift Steps® and Healing Through the Eras®. One to one peer support and recovery mentoring, curriculum and program design for individuals and organizations.
About Blank Space Recovery →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, eight pieces and counting. Wrote the Swift Steps® curriculum, Healing Through the Eras®, a fifty five week program across eleven modules, plus the Healing Through the Eras® journal workbooks, one per era.
Read the column →Recovery content
Grew a TikTok to 21,000 followers making recovery content before Swift Steps® existed. The instinct for what makes someone feel seen instead of sold to started there.
The book
Author of the Senior Pet Quality of Life Book, a care log for the last chapter with a pet you love. Written before Swift Steps®, from the same instinct: give people a way to pay attention on purpose.
Get it on Amazon →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.
Come sit with us
Nobody has to explain themselves here.
Tuesday Speak Now is free and open to everyone. Cameras optional. Listening counts.