Category Archives: Coach Credentialing

Men’s Healing Retreat – June 28 – July 1

I am excited to let you know what I have been doing in the past year. I have partnered with Dr David Forbes to present a Men’s Healing Retreat in June 2018.
 
This has been a dream of mine to go beyond the retreats I have run in the past. To create an event that goes beyond the twelve steps, beyond mutual support meetings and surpassing traditional therapy outcomes.
 
On Thursday, June 28 through Sunday, July 1, I am coordinating a Men’s Healing Retreat at the Temenos Retreat House, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The Retreat Registration begins Thursday, between 3-5pm and the retreat ends at 2pm on Sunday, July 1, 2018. For retreat registration information go to: https://www.menshealingretreat.com or contact me at 856-745-4944 or Email me at: killeenmelissa@Gmail.com
 
The Registration Fee: $985.
 
The registration fee is payable by using the PayPal application at the Retreat web site: https://www.menshealingretreat.com/
 
Please join us-or spread the word….
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Posted in Addiction, Addiction Recovery Posts, alcohol, Alcoholism, body image, Coach Credentialing, Drug Abuse, Family Dynamics, Gambling, internet addiction disorder, love addiction, mental health, Opioid addiction, Pornography, pornography addiction, Relapse, relationships, Sex Addiction | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Men’s Healing Retreat – June 28 – July 1

The Recovery Support that is Available Following Overdose

What happens to people who experience a drug overdose and are successfully revived through emergency medical intervention?

What is their fate after they leave the hospital or other emergency care setting?

Missing in the media coverage of the unrelenting legions of drug overdose deaths in the United States is an equally important but less heralded story. What happens to people who experience a drug overdose and are successfully revived through emergency medical intervention? What is their fate after they leave the hospital or other emergency care setting? The Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) and other grassroots recovery community organizations (RCOs) nationwide are influencing positive outcomes to overdose by placing recovery coaches with first responders and doctors in the emergency departments in hospitals to advance recovery options for the revived overdose patients.

The Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) is one of several hundred recovery advocacy and recovery support organizations (RCOs) rising on the American landscape in the last two decades. One of the first RCOs, CCAR pioneered what have since become standard RCO service fare: recovery-focused professional and public education, legislative advocacy, recovery community centers, recovery celebration walks and conferences, recovery support groups, training for recovery home operators, face-to-face and telephone-based recovery support services, family-focused recovery education and support services, and collaboration with research scientists on the evaluation of the effects of peer support on long-term recovery outcomes. As an example of its reach, CCAR’s Recovery Coach Academy curriculum has been used in the training of more than 20,000 recovery coaches worldwide.

CCAR began piloting an Emergency Department Recovery Coach (EDRC) Program in March of 2017. Through this program, CCAR-trained recovery coaches are on-call for hospital emergency rooms to offer assistance to patients and their families during an emergency room visit resulting from an adverse drug reaction or other alcohol- or another drug-related medical crisis. An evaluation of EDRC services provided between March and November 2017 within four collaborating hospitals revealed the following. CCAR-trained recovery coaches provided recovery support services to 534 patients/families during the 8-month evaluation period with a relatively even distribution of services provided across the four hospitals. Of those served by the EDRC, the majority were in the ER due to an alcohol- or opioid-related condition; 70% were male; and 5% were seen more than once during the evaluation period. Most importantly, of the 534-people interviewed, 528 were assertively linked to a detoxification program, inpatient or outpatient treatment, or community-based recovery support resources.

A more formal and sustained evaluation of the EDRC program is underway in collaboration with Yale University, and the program is now being expanded to an additional four hospitals. Funding support for the EDRC comes from the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services through support of the federal block grant and a Targeted Response to the Opioid Crisis Grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

CCAR’s EDRC program has many distinct features worthy of replication and local refinement. Among the more striking of such features are the following.

  • The EDRC program is governed by a formal agreement between CCAR and each participating hospital that delineates the roles and responsibilities of each party.
  • The EDRC program is currently staffed by one Recovery Coach Manager and 9 full-time Recovery Coaches (RCs).
  • Emergency Department Recovery Coaches (EDRCs) are recruited and screened (2 interviews with background and reference checks) based on desired experience, skills, and a good work history, but also for what our EDRC manager, Jennifer Chadukiewicz, calls “a servant’s heart.”
  • All EDRCs go through more than 60 hours of training and spend the first weeks shadowing tenured EDRCs. The training includes the CCAR Recovery Coach Academy© (30 hours) as well as topical trainings, e.g., Narcan (naloxone administration), medication-assisted recovery, ethical decision-making, crisis intervention, and conflict resolution. Hospital specific training includes such areas as fire/general safety, OSHA, blood borne pathogens, infection control, hazardous materials, and HIPPA regulations.
  • EDRC Recovery Coaches are employed by CCAR rather than the hospitals and enter the hospitals as service vendors and “guests” who defer to leadership of ER staff.
  • The RCs are paid a livable wage ($20-$25/hr. to start plus benefits, health insurance, etc.) that allows them to work full time and support themselves and their families while affording time away for rest and self-care.
  • EDRC coverage is provided from 8 am to 12 midnight, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
  • Patients have the option of enrollment in enhanced Telephone Recovery Support (TRS) program (i.e., patients receive daily support calls for the next 10 days and then weekly if desired).
  • EDRC’s provide assertive linkage and transportation (when needed) to treatment and recovery support resources.
  • The EDRCs spend considerable time with community providers and other stakeholders building collaborative relationships that facilitate this patient referral and service linkage process.
  • CCAR provides each hospital emergency department with “prescription pad” style resource handouts that can be attached to discharge paperwork and given to patient friend/family member.

There are critical windows of vulnerability and opportunity within addiction and recovery careers that serve to plunge one deeper into addiction or mark the catalytic beginning of a recovery process. The reversal of a drug overdose or treatment of other drug-related medical crises can constitute a recovery tipping point.

The emergency room is not the only critical point of potential intervention to reduce the risk of drug-related deaths and to promote addiction recovery. For persons with a history of addiction, the days and weeks immediately following release from a correctional facility, release from an inpatient or residential detoxification/treatment program without medication support, or cessation of medication-assisted treatment, and even transfer from one medication-assisted treatment provider to another all constitute a zone of heightened risk for re-initiation of risky drug use and death. Altering such risks and tipping the scales toward recovery stabilization, recovery maintenance, and enhanced quality of personal/family life in long-term recovery should be the goals of every community. Recovery community organizations like CCAR are showing us how this can be done.

This blog was written by William White, Rebecca Allen & Phil Valentine. It was originally posted on the William White web site: www.williamwhitepapers.com on January 18, 2018

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Posted in Addiction Recovery Posts, alcohol, Alcoholism, Coach Credentialing, Drug Abuse, Opioid addiction, Recovery Coaching, Relapse, Research | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Recovery Support that is Available Following Overdose

New Training Resource for Supervisors of Peers and Recovery Coaches

Recently, a new resource on the Supervision of Peer Based Recovery Support Services has been published under a grant from the Regional Facilitation Center and the Oregon Health Authority, specifically from the Health Services Division of the OHA. This is a resource is designed for the training of supervisors of Peer Recovery Support Specialists and Recovery Coaches.

Peer-based recovery support services (P-BRSS) have grown exponentially in recent years as an adjunct, and in some cases, an alternative to professionally-directed addiction treatment. P-BRSS are also being integrated within allied human services, primary health care, the child welfare system, the criminal justice system, and managed behavioral healthcare organizations. Reviews of the research to date on P-BRSS (See White, 2009; Reif, et al, 2014; Boisvert, et al, 2008) suggest salutatory effects of such services on long-term recovery outcomes. A growing body of literature explores such areas as the history and theoretical foundation of P-BRSS, the role of such services within drug policy, the integration of P-BRSS into recovery community organizations, avoiding role ambiguity and role conflicts in the delivery of P-BRSS, and ethical issues that arise in the delivery of P-BRSS.

But surprisingly little has been written on the supervision of peer recovery support services. Through support of a grant from the Oregon Health Authority (Health Services Division), Substance Use Disorder Peer Supervision Competencies has just been completed. The report is authored by Eric Martin, Anthony Jordan, Michael Razavi, Van Burnham, IV, Ally Linfoot, Monta Knudson, Erin Devet, Linda Hudson, and Lakeesha Dumas. J. Thomas Shrewsbury. Dr. Jeff Marotta, Dr. Ruch Bichsel, and Kitty Martz served as editors. The supervisory competencies are organized within four sections of the report: Recovery-Oriented Philosophy, Providing Education & Training, Facilitating Quality Supervision, and Performing Administrative Duties. This document is an invaluable resource for organizations involved in the recruitment, selection, orientation, training, and on-going supervision and evaluation of recovery coaches and other support specialists. It stands as an excellent complement to SAMHSA’s 2015 Core Competencies for Peer Workers in Behavioral Health Services.

I think the greatest mistake that could be made in guiding the delivery of P-BRSS would be to assume that traditional models of clinical supervision within addiction treatment can be indiscriminately applied to the supervision of P-BRSS delivery. If that occurs, peers providing recovery support service will be turned into little more than junior counselors and the potential vitality of that role and the broader role of community in long-term recovery will be lost.

P-BRSS require a distinct role definition, different standards of practice, and different models of supervision. Substance Use Disorder Peer Supervision Competencies will help assure such distinctiveness. I commend this report to all organizations providing peer-based recovery support services.

This blog post has been written by William White. The link to this article at the William White Papers web site is:

http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/blog/2017/05/new-resource-on-supervision-of-peer-recovery-support-services.html

William (Bill) White is an Emeritus Senior Research Consultant at Chestnut Health Systems / Lighthouse Institute and past-chair of the board of Recovery Communities United. Bill has a Master’s degree in Addiction Studies and has worked full time in the addictions field since 1969 as a street worker, counselor, clinical director, researcher and well-traveled trainer and consultant.   He has authored or co-authored more than 400 articles, monographs, research reports and book chapters and 18 books. His book, Slaying the Dragon – The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America, received the McGovern Family Foundation Award for the best book on addiction recovery. Bill was featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS special “Close to Home: Addiction in America” and Showtime’s documentary “Smoking, Drinking and Drugging in the 20th Century.” Bill’s sustained contributions to the field have been acknowledged by awards from the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, NAADAC: The Association of Addiction Professionals, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and the Native American Wellbriety Movement. Bill’s widely read papers on recovery advocacy have been published by the Johnson Institute in a book entitled Let’s Go Make Some History: Chronicles of the New Addiction Recovery Advocacy Movement.

You can contact Bill White at: http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/ or bwhite@chestnut.org

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