Strengthen Peer Recovery Support Services & Programs
Contents
- 1 Overview
- 2 Twelve Step Programs
- 3 Peer-Based Recovery Alternatives to Twelve Step Programs
- 4 Tools and Resources to Enhance Peer-Supported Recovery
- 5 Recovery Coaches and Peer Recovery Specialists
- 6 Tools & Resources
- 7
Overview
Peer-based recovery groups help people support and maintain recovery, they can be an important part of a successful recovery ecosystem. The following should be considered as ways to enhance the impact of peer recovery and support in a community:
1. Strive to have a wide range of recovery groups that can support people in different situations with their recovery.
2. Help connect people with appropriate recovery groups--potentially becoming a source of information to help people make decisions on which recovery group to be a part of, possibly with statistics and reviews of different groups. (Any examples of this?)
3. Provide information and tools to peer-based recovery programs to help them improve.
4. Help connect people in peer-based recovery groups with other tools and resources to support successful long-term recovery.
Twelve Step Programs
Those with a goal of lifetime total abstinence had 5.2 times the odds of alcohol abstinence vs. those with any other goal..[1] That study compared 12-Step programs with other programs not based on the 12 steps and found they had similar benefits.
Links to 12-Step Programs
Nar-Anon Family Groups Website - A 12-step program for families and friends of addicts
Peer-Based Recovery Alternatives to Twelve Step Programs
People may look for peer-based recovery support and recovery groups that are not faith-based or have a different approach than traditional twelve step programs. No one form of peer-based support is right for everyone and programs should be explored to fit the needs of the individual seeking recovery.
SMART Recovery
SMART Recovery is based on cognitive-behavioral approaches that help members recognize environmental and emotional factors for alcohol and other drug use (as well as other “addictive” behaviors) and then to respond to them in new, more productive ways. It also incorporates motivational interviewing concepts. Unlike some support groups whose principles remain static, SMART Recovery maintains a philosophy of evolving as scientific knowledge evolves.
LifeRing Secular Recovery
LifeRing Secular Recovery (LSR) has three fundamental principles: sobriety, secularity, and self-help. For this organization, sobriety also always means abstinence from alcohol and other problem drugs, and they practice the sobriety priority, “we do not drink or use, no matter what.” Although people of all faiths or none are welcome, LifeRing supports methods relying “on human efforts rather than on divine intervention.” For them, self-help means that the key to recovery lies in the individual’s own motivation and effort, and the group is there to reinforce his or her own inner efforts.
Celebrate Recovery
Celebrate Recovery (CR) was founded as a Christian support group in the early 1990s and is part of the Saddleback Church of Christopher Warren (author of mega bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life) fame. It has eight recovery principles based on the biblical beatitudes, each translated into a principle of personal recovery, and provides a Christ-centered, Bible-based recovery program.
She Recovers
She Recovers provides a variety of resources, from blogs to retreats, peer support, and recovery coaches certified in their approach. This article provides more background information.
Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS)
Secular Organizations for Sobriety is an alternative to 12-Step programs, S.O.S. prides itself on being its own entity and not deriving from another secular or religious program. S.O.S. continues to evolve with new research and does not subscribe to any one theory surrounding addiction.
Tools and Resources to Enhance Peer-Supported Recovery
The Addiction Resource Center
Peer Support Toolkit
The Peer Support Center at Mental Health America
Mental Health America's Peer Support Center has innovative programs and tools to significantly improve the well-being of people with a wide variety of mental health and substance abuse issues. One of their programs, Social Self-Directed Care, has had very impressive results. As an example of one evaluation, in the baseline survey 0% of participants said they had as many friends as they would like. In the final survey 75% answered affirmatively. Re-hospitalization and emergency services rates went down over 70%, and 95% of the participants rated their satisfaction with the program at the highest possible score.rTribe
rTribe is a phone application and platform that enhances small group person-to-person accountability and encouragement to address a wide variety of challenges, including overcoming addiction or behaviors that lead to negative consequences for people. The platform has both free and premium (paid) levels of functionality, and it includes a variety of free resources to help people on their journey of overcoming the challenges they are working on. It also provides access to on-demand professional help for reasonable fees. People in peer recovery programs can use rTribe as way to provide improved accountability and support between people (a person and his or her sponsor) or among small groups (within or outside any particular recovery group). Volunteers who want to help support people in recovery can be part of a group and use this phone app to easily communicate and track progress.
Rezility
Rezility is a new platform and phone app that can help connect people with resources and positive supports and activities in their community. While it is not specifically focused on recovery, it is a valuable (and free) platform to help build the connections that can contribute to successful recovery. Many different stakeholders can participate in many ways--from housing providers who want their residents to be supported in a stable, healthy and positive life to non-profits that want better ways to connect with those they serve. It can be part of an ecosystem that supports long-term recovery. Peer recovery groups can encourage the use of this platform to improve the social integration and access to available resources for people in their group.
Recovery Coaches and Peer Recovery Specialists
About Recovery Coaches and Peer Recovery Specialists
Peer Recovery Specialist.
Although the roles of peer reovery specialists and recovery coach often overlap, there are some distinctions. Peer recovery specialist are typlically more involved in connecting someone in need get linked to treatment. Peer reovery specialists are often employed by local governments and health agencies, non-profits and other communitity organizations working to address substance use and support recovery within a community. Peer recovery specialists work in a wide variety of settings, including hopitals, harm reduction organizations, jails and prisons, homeless shelters, faith-based communities, and anywhere out in the community where people are in need of treatment and other services. In addition to training, peer recovery specialist work with their employes to develop a network of available treatment options.
Certification to become a peer recovery specialist again varies by state. Each state typically requies the completion of coursework followed by a number of supervised hours. For those in recovery, some amount of time in recovery - typically 1 ro 2 years - may be required. While most peer recovery specialist are people in recovery, other types of lived experience, such as familiy members of people with SUD, can also become peers in certain states.
A full list of certification requirements can be found here.
Recovery Coach
A Recovery Coach is a generic term that covers many different roles. They provide invaluable support for people trying to overcome their compulsive, obsessive, destructive behaviors. A Recovery Coach is a kind of “Life Coach” that helps clients make smart choices and healthy decisions, with the number-one priority preventing a relapse or engaging in other self-destructive behavoirs.
A recovery coach typically assists those new to recovery, often after a person completes treatment or is released from the criminal justice system. A recovery coach typically spends a substantial amount of time with clients helping them to strengthern their recovery supports and dealing with other "life issues" that many new to recovey face. This can include help with getting a job, getting to support meetings, getting medical assistnace, finding housing, finding child support, and other services to help those new to recovery get back into a stable environment that improves the liklihood that longer term recovery can be achieved.
Training to become a recovery coach is typically not as long or involved as it is to become a peer recovery specialist. Recovery coaches typically charge for services and refer to those they work with as clients. Many recovery coaches are self-employed or work as independant contractors.
Related Resources
BRSS TACS (SAMHSA)
SAMSHA supports Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale, Technical Assistance Center Strategy - a program that seeks to grow and support peer recovery training across the country. This is includes publication of state-by-state directory of training and certification requirements that can be found here.
Center for Addiction Recovery Training (CART)
CART offers training and certification for recovery coaches.
The Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) and the Recovery Coach Academy
CARR is one model of how recovery coaching is used to create supports for successful and sustained recovery. Their Recovery Coach Academy equips individuals with the skills and competency needed to become an effective recovery coach. The CCAR model for peer recovery training is an evidence-based and time-tested model for offering peer support. This model is designed to provide an up-to-date approach to helping those in recovery from addiction. Information on the program can be found here.
Model Programs
Anchor Recovery
Anchor Recovery Community Center. Those that join receive access to the following programming:
- AA meetings
- holistic wellness activities
- Employment services like job interviewing and computer literacy skills to help you build your career
- Be a part of network of supportive people
AnchorED Outcomes
- In 3 years since it's start, AnchorED’s recovery coaches have counseled more than 2,000 overdose survivors, with 87% of them opting to engage in some type of recovery service after being discharged from the ER
Anchor Consulting
Blue HART program
- Each police station intake station has set days during which their doors are open to individuals in need of treatment for a SUD
- Every station in the county facilitates care 24/7
- First, participants undergo a background check so that Blue HART can develop a holistic view of their situation and begin tracking their case.
- Then the participant is linked to a recovery coach
- Next the participant is transported by an officer to a partnering clinic where the participant is evaluated by a clinician who determines the proper level of care.
- If the state lacks an adequate number of treatment beds and long-term options, some participants are sent out-of-state to facilities with which Blue HART has established relationships.
- Through the use of forfeiture funds, the police department organizes door-to-door transportation to treatment, be it a short drive to a local detox or a plane ticket to a long-term accredited facility in Texas.
- Existing criminal charges are postponed during an individual’s participation in the program, and can be used as leverage later on in order to motivate individuals to remain in treatment.
- When participants have successfully completed treatment, they continue to engage with their Recovery Coach, and those with pending criminal charges work with the prosecutor’s office to determine the status of their charges.
- Recovery Coaches are people who have been in recovery for at least two years and have been trained to provide mentorship and guidance to Blue HART and OORP participants as they navigate the continuum of care. This constant communication helps the program keep track of participants at every critical step, from the initial assessment through sustained recovery.
- All participants engaged in Blue HART sign HIPAA releases to ensure that every provider engaged in their treatment can communicate with one another and make informed decisions regarding the participant’s care.
- (Blue HART receives weekly updates from clinicians on each participant’s progress.) This also enables the program to intervene at critical moments when the participant otherwise may have fallen off of the radar.
Cost
- Free
- scholarships are available to those in financial need
Key Partners
- Law Enforcement (Police and Prosecutors)
- Clinicians
- Treatment Providers
- Recovery Coaches
RECOVERY COACHES IN OCEAN COUNTY, N.J.
The Ocean County prosecutor’s office has launched the “Recovery Coach Program,” a voluntary program that connects individuals revived by naloxone with treatment options once they are stabilized in emergency rooms. Working with area hospitals, the program matches an overdose victim with a recovery coach, who, if the patient is willing, will work with the person for up to eight weeks and help steer him or her toward recovery. Free or subsidized treatment is available for willing participants. The coaches are typically in recovery themselves, which officials say provides a perspective that doctors and law enforcement officials cannot. Early in the program, up to 70 percent of overdose victims had agreed to participate in the program.
Recovery Army
Recovery Army is a website that shares many stories of victory and engages people in recovery to help others. www.recoveryarmy.org
College Student Groups
RICovery
RICovery is a student-run organization at Rhode Island College that is a peer-to-peer support group. Students can drop in on meetings to release stress, to talk about addiction or to make plans to advance awareness. In addition, each semester RICovery holds training sessions on how to administer naloxone, the antidote for opioid overdose.
Tools & Resources
TR - Strengthen Peer Recovery Support Services & Programs
SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: [fill out table below]
Sources
- [1]
- Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Heroin and Prescription Painkillers: A Toolkit for Community Action. 2016
