What do I need to do to be a certified recovery coach?

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Melissa Killeen

I published my book Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions in 2013 and in 2020 introduced the second edition. In seven short years, recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist certification training has become one of the fastest-growing aspects of the coaching field. So- what do I need to do in order to be a certified recovery coach?

In 2013, the organizations that offer recovery coach or peer-recovery specialist training numbered around 50. Today, the number has grown to over 300. Many state certification boards have established recovery coach and peer-recovery support specialist certifications. Yet, for many people that seek to be a recovery coach the qualifications, the training, the requirements for certification, or credentialing seem baffling. So I would like to attempt to clear up this confusion and will answer these questions in this post:

What is the process for certification that a recovery coach or peer recovery specialist must go through?

What is the process of getting the training, and then receiving the credential as a recovery coach or peer recovery support specialist?

What kind of recovery coaching certification should I be focusing on?

If you are thinking about becoming a recovery coach, I suggest you follow these steps:

  1. Research the training organizations that offer recovery coach training you can afford and that are in your area. Go to https://www.mkrecoverycoaching.com/recovery-coach-training-organizations/ for a list of addiction recovery coach training organizations.
  2. Verify that you meet the qualifications to apply for the course. You are 18-years-old, have a GED or high school diploma, and have one-year sobriety from any addiction.
  3. Take the required training hours for a recovery coach (some states require 46 hours)
  4. Contact your state’s Addiction Counselor’s Certification Board, register your interest in getting a certification. This begins the process of obtaining a certification as a recovery coach.
  5. Research places like Recovery Community Organizations, sober living residences, or treatment centers in your region. These are places you can work on your practice hours as a recovery-coach-in-training.
  6. Start and complete the recovery-coach-in-training supervised practice hours. The hours vary by state. Generally, the required practice hours are between 200-500 hours
  7. After you have completed these practice hours, send in your recovery coach certification application with paperwork verifying the completion of supervised practice hours to the state credentialing board with a certification fee (fee varies for every state, from $100-$250)
  8. You can take up to two years to take the exam from starting your practice hours. When you are ready to take the recovery coach certification exam- you pay an additional fee for taking the certification exam.
  9. When you pass the test, you receive the coaching certificate

Where do I begin?

To be a peer recovery coach, research for training prefaced with these words- peer-recovery-support-specialist, certified peer-recovery practitioner, recovery coach, or peer-recovery specialist. Every state is different, and every state uses different names for these certifications. Look for courses that offer the training needed for a peer recovery coach, recovery coach, and/or a peer working with people in recovery. It is the exact same training, in a similar classroom, with different job titles. It may be confusing now, but soon you will become adept at the new language.

What type of recovery coaching training should I receive?

I suggest you first take a basic certification training course. It can be a forty-two-hour course for $1,000. Or a four-week course for $4,000. It is your choice. Many states give CCAR credentialed training courses at a deep discount or for free. CCAR is the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery, it is a non-profit organization and one of the largest recovery coaching training organization in the US. Some community colleges also offer recovery coaching courses at a lower cost.

You can make the decision after the basic training is completed to apply for state board certification. As a coach, if you are interested in being your own business person, taking training with a CCAR-like training organization should be adequate. If you want to work in a treatment center, with a recovery community organization, social services agency, or hospital, certification issued by the state’s certification board or the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) is required by the institution hiring you. If you want to carry professional liability insurance or be reimbursed by Medicaid for your services, certification by a state certification board is mandatory.

What is a state certification board?

The process for receiving a certificate as a recovery coach is overseen by a state’s certification or licensing board. A state certification board tests and renews practitioner’s (coaches, therapists, nurses, etc.). These certificates to ensure their clinical knowledge is up to par. Also, that they have the ethical knowledge to practice in their profession. The processes for certification, such as training, educational requirements, exams, and renewal guidelines, vary from state to state. These certification standards are recognized by health care companies, insurance companies, Medicaid, Medicare as well as companies that hire these practitioners.

The state certification boards are the same boards that issue licenses or certifications for drug and alcohol counselors and therapists. Some states have combined licenses and certification boards all in one office, so it could be the same office in which nurses or hairdressers receive their licenses. I suggest you search the Internet for drug and alcohol counselor’s certification for your state. Then search in this state board website for recovery coach or peer recovery support specialist certification. As of May 2018, forty state credentialing boards had developed criteria for the training and deployment of recovery coaches and peer-recovery specialists, so you should have no trouble finding these boards on the Internet.

What is Reciprocity?

Reciprocity is a term you will see used often on these board sites. When you are certified through your home state’s certification board, you have the ability to transfer that credential to another state. This is called reciprocity. State certification boards may offer reciprocity to certified coaches from other states. The state boards have the authority to set reciprocity requirements for coaches to practice in their state. Not all certifications are eligible for reciprocity. It is vitally important that you investigate reciprocity guidelines prior to relocating to another state because it can be a complicated process.

There are national and international recovery coach certifications available. In 2013, the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) developed an International Peer Mentor in recovery credential. NAADAC (National Association for Addiction Professionals)  developed a Nationally Certified Peer Recovery Coach credential, that is accepted in all states.

What recovery coaching certification should I be focusing on? Do I need extra training to be a recovery coach in a hospital working with opioid overdose, Narcan revived patients?

You can make the decision after the initial coaching training is completed to go further in your studies. Your choice to expand your knowledge can be enhanced by your personal experiences. If you personally have experienced an opioid overdose, you can be extremely helpful to someone experiencing the same in a hospital. If you have gotten sober on the streets, you can help another person in the homeless population do likewise.  If you have achieved recovery while incarcerated and now have successfully navigated the re-entry process, you are an ideal re-entry coach. If you have lived with an addicted loved one and emerged on the other side with a better point of view, you can help another do the same.

There are 2-day courses for recovery coaches working with patients that have been revived from an opioid overdose. There are 1-day courses for Re-Entry coaches and similar seminars for people wanting to work with the homeless population as coaches. There is a splendid one-week course for being a recovery coach working with families and parents of addicted loved ones that is organized by the Partnership for Drug Free Kids  https://drugfree.org/

What happens after you receive your recovery coaching or peer-recovery support specialist certificate?

You can begin working as a recovery coach or peer recovery support specialist. In the next 2 – 5 years, you are required to take certain courses in order to renew this certificate. Often this renewal training will require a six-hour ethics training to have been taken. Refer to your state board for more information on courses and the renewal time frames. A recovery coaching certificate renewal fee will be required.

Hopefully, this blog helps you formulate what is needed as you research being a recovery coach. An additional source of information with very enjoyable stories from other recovery coaches is the Second Edition of Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions. The book is available on Amazon

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The Best Book on Recovery Coaching

Posted on September 21, 2020 by Melissa Killeen

The second edition of RECOVERY COACHING- A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions – has just been released

http://www.recoverycoachingguide.com/

The second edition of RECOVERY COACHING- A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions has 100 new pages of vital recovery coaching ideas aligned with the most up to date, state-of-the-art research on substance misuse treatment models, examples of new recovery support practitioner jobs, discussions about situations that a coach encounters with a patient revived from an opioid overdose and very important information on the medications employed in medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for the treatment of alcohol, opioid or methamphetamine misuse. This second edition demonstrates how using multiple treatment perspectives, including Motivational Interviewing, Harm Reduction, and the Recovery Management Model can be integrated to inform an effective recovery coaching practice. Readers receive sobriety tools that can be used as a guide for the coach to support the person in their recovery process. Poignant, personal stories from recovery coaches pinpoint their experiences and fill the book with bonus coaching material. This second edition includes the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) survey as well as a list of what a recovery coach should anticipate from a recovery coach’s supervisor. However, the resources do not stop there, the book gives practical business advice about how to set up a successful recovery coaching practice.

80% of people leaving a substance misuse treatment center will relapse within the first year of discharge. 9 out of 10 of this 80% relapse within the first ninety days after discharge. Working with a recovery coach or a peer recovery support specialist can significantly reduce the likelihood of relapse during this crucial period. Recovery coaching and peer recovery support is the missing link, bridging the gap between an individual leaving a treatment center and maintaining long term sobriety.

RECOVERY COACHING- A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions gives readers something that has not been done before: a thorough explanation of recovery coaching and peer recovery support. First published in 2013, it was the first book on Recovery Coaching, since the field’s inception in the 1990s. This book will be an indispensable resource for the recovery coach or peer support specialist just starting out, the coaching veteran, and any addiction treatment professional.

“My goal is to have clients experience a blend of recovery and life tools to create the skills needed to maintain long term sobriety” states Ms. Killeen. “This book embodies that philosophy, guiding the new coach to know as much as they can learn at the start of their coaching career. This book blends the knowledge of coaching, the models of recovery, life skills, and  several examples of clinical research used in the treatment of addictions.”

Melissa Killeen is an established Recovery Coach with a broad understanding of this new field in addiction treatment. Included in this Second Edition of Recovery Coaching – A Guide to Coaching People in Recovery from Addictions is the knowledge she has received from many years of recovery coaching, developing Recovery Community Organizations (RCOs), training recovery coaches for certification, and working with treatment centers on developing recovery coaching programs for their expanding aftercare program.

Ms. Killeen received her master’s degree in Executive Coaching and a Master of Philosophy in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania, which is where she developed her model of integrating executive coaching with recovery coaching. With many years of personal recovery, she realized when studying executive coaching at this Ivy League university, the impact coaching would have for those that want recovery but cannot seem to achieve a balance of work, relationships, and recovery. Ms. Killeen is the past president of Recovery Coaches International, an international association of recovery coaches. In 2015 she was presented with the Vernon Johnson Award from the Faces and Voices of Recovery, in Washington DC. She is a Nationally Certified Professional Recovery Support Specialist (NCPRSS) and a recovery coach trainer with CCAR. Melissa lives in Southern New Jersey.

Email Melissa at: KilleenMelissa@Gmail.com, call country code: 00-1 US area code: 856.745.4844 (Eastern Standard Time/United States) or SKYPE her at: mkrecoverycoaching.

You can visit her recovery coaching website at https://www.mkrecoverycoaching.com/.

You can purchase this book at: http://www.recoverycoachingguide.com/

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Affected by a Loved One’s Addiction? “Prodependence” is a Must Read

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Melissa Killeen

Dr. Robert Weiss is widely known for his therapeutic work and his books about addiction, in particular sex, porn, and love addiction. His latest book, Prodependence: Moving Beyond Codependency, is an extension of these efforts, focusing on the ways in which therapists (and the public) view and treat not just addicts, but spouses and family members of addicts.

For more than three decades, the primary treatment and recovery model for loved ones of addicts has been codependence, which typically labels efforts to help an addicted or otherwise struggling loved one as enmeshed and enabling. Then, the caregiving family member is identified as codependent and told that he or she needs to “detach with love” or nothing will ever get better.

To a person who loves and cares for an addict, the codependence model feels like they’re being blamed and shamed for someone else’s problem. And that doesn’t make a lot of sense to them.

With Prodependence, Dr. Weiss steers us in a new direction—celebrating rather than denigrating the desire to stay connected with and to care for a struggling loved one, even in the face of addiction. Weiss asks: “If I love someone with a physical illness or a disability by helping that person and the rest of my family, even to my detriment, I’m a saint. But if I love and care for an addict in the same way, I am called out as enmeshed, enabling, controlling, and codependent. Why is there a difference?”

That seems like a reasonable question, to which there is no real answer.

To remedy the situation, Dr. Weiss suggests a new model, which he calls prodependence. About this approach, he says, “To treat loved ones of addicts using prodependence, we need not find that something is ‘wrong with them.’ We can simply acknowledge the trauma and inherent dysfunction that occurs when living in close relationship with an addict, and then we can address that in the healthiest, least shaming way.”

Interesting, Dr. Weiss’s approach to treatment, in terms of the work that loved ones of addicts need to do, is similar to the work done in codependency treatment—an improved focus on self-care and setting better boundaries with the addict (and others). The difference is in how therapists and caregiving loved ones think about and talk about the situation.

Codependence imposes a pseudo-pathology that blames and shames the caregiving loved one; prodependence understands the caregiving loved one is in the midst of an ongoing crisis and doing the best that he or she can, given the circumstances.

Prodependence says that loving and caring for an addict is not a pathological behavior, even if that love and care occasionally veers off course into enmeshment and enabling. Rather than pathologizing loved ones of addicts, prodependence says we should applaud them for their efforts while helping them love and care for the addict in ways that are less stressful to them and more helpful to the addict and his or her recovery.

This is a refreshing approach. Any person who has ever been labeled as codependent and told that he or she needs to detach with love knows how little sense that label and that suggestion make. As human beings, we can’t walk away from a person we love any more than we can stop breathing. It’s just not natural. Do we sometimes need to take better care of ourselves while we help our addicted loved one? Almost certainly. Would setting and maintaining better boundaries with the addict be helpful to us and to the addict and his or her recovery? Without doubt. But that doesn’t mean we need to walk away and leave the addict to sink or swim without us.

Prodependence recognizes and accepts (and even celebrates) these facts. In so doing, it presents an evolved prism through which therapists and caregiving loved ones can examine, evaluate, and improve not just relationships affected by addiction, but relationships in general.

Prodependence: Moving Beyond Codependency is recommended (maybe even required) reading for all recovering addicts, all spouses and family members of addicts, and all therapists who work with addicts and family members of addicts.

A review written by Scott Brassart , a editor and writer for In the Rooms – https://www.intherooms.com/

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