Starfish Recovery & Wellness

About Starfish Recovery & Wellness

Starfish Recovery & Wellness is a sober living operator in Richmond, Virginia, running four certified recovery residences in the city, which belongs to no county and sits in DBHDS Region 4. The organization pairs residential recovery housing with structured holistic programming delivered by licensed and credentialed staff.

A Recovery Housing Provider Founded on Lived Experience

Frank R. Bellanger III founded Starfish out of his own recovery from substance use disorder and his own experience of rebuilding a life after incarceration, adding professional certifications in recovery support and coaching and years of work with incarcerated populations. Stephanie Bellanger co-founded the organization from the other side of that experience, having supported her partner through addiction, and serves as Chief Wellness Officer with a background in CRAFT and family wellness. The result is an operator whose leadership has been through both the recovery and the family side of the same problem, which shapes how it handles the people who call about a relative.

The Starfish Model Behind These Sober Homes

The founder built the organization's five-pronged framework, represented by the five arms of a starfish, around the emotional, mental, social, physical and educational needs of a resident. Mindfulness classes run weekly through a partnership with the InnerWork Center. CrossFit training runs weekly through Shockoe Bottom Performance. A recovery curriculum called WELLBEING is aligned with Virginia's Standards of Learning for Health, and a twelve-week employment readiness course is delivered with a national nonprofit partner. Residents choose the recovery pathway that fits them, whether twelve-step, SMART Recovery, faith-based, Dharma Recovery or another recognized approach, and the staff themselves come from a mix of those pathways.

Four Certified Recovery Residences in Richmond

All four residences appear on Virginia's public register:

• A women's residence on Pemberton Avenue in Richmond, certified at Level 3.
• A men's residence on North Avenue in Richmond, certified at Level 2.
• A men's residence on 1st Avenue in Richmond, certified at Level 2.
• A women's residence on Moore Street in Richmond, certified at Level 2.

Three sit on Richmond's Northside and one sits west of downtown near Virginia Commonwealth University, so a transfer between them leaves the city, the bus routes and the clinical partners unchanged.

Serving Men and Women in Separate Sober Houses

The operator keeps its residences single-gender, two for men and two for women, with the sole Level 3 house serving women. Splitting at the house level means house expectations, groups and shared space are written for one population, and it lets a resident move between the intensive and step-down phases without moving into a mixed household.

VARR Certification and the Standards This Operator Works Under

Starfish operates residences certified at Level II and Level III by the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences, which credentials recovery residences under the authority of Virginia's Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. The operator states that staff complete a minimum of eighty hours of state-approved training, that staff and residents take recurring REVIVE overdose-response training, that its residences keep monitored entrances and exits, that a formal grievance process is in place, and that individualized recovery plans are tracked through structured assessments. It also states that it exceeds the minimum standards by aligning with national recovery residence guidelines.

Court Advocacy and Referrals Into These Recovery Homes

The organization is well regarded in central Virginia and the Middle Peninsula for court advocacy, testimony given on behalf of someone with a substance use disorder to secure release into a program. It coordinates with local courts on pre-trial intervention, bond conditions and alternative sentencing, and offers bed-to-bed transfers so someone leaving custody arrives directly at a certified residence. Same-day admission is available when a bed is open, and residents have come from as far as Maine, Florida and Kentucky as well as from the Richmond region.

What to Establish Before Choosing This Sober Living Operator

The questions at the operator level differ from the ones about a single address. Detoxification is not provided on site; a clinical partner supplies same-day medically supervised detox. Co-occurring mental health conditions are accepted where substance use disorder is also present, with clinical coordination and referral to higher levels of care. Marijuana use is not accommodated, including under a medical card, which follows from the certification. Health insurance is not accepted at present, and the organization assists insured residents with coordinating their own care. Anyone comparing providers should also ask how the intensive phase transitions to step down, and what happens to a resident's housing when it does.