OTTUMWA — It started in Ottumwa, so it seems fitting that the first Moms Off Meth national conference will take place here, too.

Judy Murphy, one of the group’s founders, is getting excited. She isn’t in charge of the MOM groups’ day-to-day activities, but she is proud to see how far things have come. The original Ottumwa contingent has spawned MOM meetings in Minnesota, Washington, Nebraska and Missouri. There’s a group getting ready to start in Georgia.

The attention expanded even outside the United States as members gave interviews with Canadian, Swiss and Japanese news outlets. They also traveled to spread the word about how Moms Off Meth works.

Why is this program successful?

“It’s really about living skills, about solutions skills,” Murphy said. There’s peer pressure to succeed, but the groups focus more on helping each other change their lives than cracking the whip when someone slips.

The national conference takes place Friday at the Bridge View Center. The MOM participants helped select which presentations they wanted. That’s a hallmark of the groups’ approaches. The women are in control. So speakers will address issues like juvenile court, the states’ child welfare systems, trust and relationships, along with addiction and parenting skills.

Looking back at the past nine years is also a goal.

“Number one, we want to celebrate how far we’ve come,” Murphy said. “It’s going to be a great educational day for he groups.”

Meth has come down in the level of attention it receives in Iowa since the state Legislature passed strict laws about how much pseudoephedrine people can buy at once. That limited access to a critical ingredient in meth, and it wiped out the majority of small-time meth labs.

The problem didn’t go away. Imported meth was always a bigger source for people. And Murphy said meth addicts still have plenty of options. Many use more than one drug. Others swap alcohol or cocaine for meth.

“It’s business as usual as far as users go,” she said.

That means there are always new people coming into the program. But Ottumwa, the founding site for Moms Off Meth, didn’t have an active chapter for a while. The original group was a victim of funding cuts as government tightened its belt.

One of the members of that original group managed to get things going again.

“It was sad to see where the first group shut down,” Murphy said. “[But] one of the original members is now a substance abuse counselor. Ottumwa has a wonderful group, a very motivated, enthusiastic group.”

And now it has a future. Again.