Resource Library

This toolkit serves as a resource and guide for behavioral health agencies adopting a tobacco-free wellness policy for their facilities and campuses. It provides information on tobacco use among the behavioral health population, as well as a step-by-step guide to becoming a tobacco-free facility and treating tobacco use in clients and staff. It also suggests ways of incorporating a larger program of wellness that not only supports smoking cessation, but improves overall the mental, emotional, physical, occupational, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of one’s life.

This toolkit was created by the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California, San Francisco in May 2022.

Being given choices of institutions, levels of care, treatment goals/methods, service personnel, and service duration has historically not been part of the personal experience of addiction treatment in the United States. This article describes why addiction treatment professionals have been reticent to offer choices to their alcohol and drug dependent clients and why that philosophy is now undergoing reevaluation.

Screening tool for current alcohol or drug problem.

The body of work of peer support programs targeting youth is heavily focused on mental health models involving young adult peer mentors. In Connecticut, for example, some work has taken place involving youth 18-25 with mental illness and/or substance use disorder issues where peers provide support and hope to other young adults with these conditions. In 2017, SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health noted a rise in the lifetime illicit drug use among Latino-Hispanic youth 12-17 and 18-25 from the previous year (2016). For 12 to 17-year old’s the percentage rose from 23.2 percent of youth in 2016 to 24.6 percent of all Latino-Hispanic youth in 2017. Similarly, for 18 to 25-year old’s, the percentage of lifetime used of illicit drugs rose from 51.1 percent in 2016 to 54.7 percent in 2017. It is therefore important to explore the options of addressing these rising rates through peer support models targeting Latino-Hispanic youth and young adults.

The addiction profession has a strong foundation of peer involvement. In fact, the earliest addiction professionals were the first peer recovery coaches informed by Alcoholics Anonymous. However, recent shifts within the workforce has led to some discomfort and questions about where the newly arising peer recovery coaches will fit into the overall services of the addiction treatment and recovery spectrum. This webinar will provide a comparison between a modern addiction counselor and peer recovery coach in regards to current roles, scope of peer practice, leadership development, ethical considerations and supervision needs. The presenter will also discuss different models of peer recovery supports, including details about how they are delivered, by whom, where, and reimbursement.

Data-driven decision making for recovery and recovery support services is possible. Indiana has made some key policy changes at a state and agency level that increase the availability of data across agencies. The Recovery Supports Workgroup of the Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA) is now using this data to evaluate gaps in key recovery supports, to make the recommendations, and track outcomes. In this session everyone will learn innovative ways of looking for, collecting, and utilizing recovery-specific data that drives and enhances recovery outcomes.

Effective substance use disorder (SUD) treatment requires providers to understand what an individual genuinely needs to do to change substance use behaviors. An essential element in motivational SUD interventions is helping people who misuse substances raise awareness of their values and hopes for a healthy life. Using strategic conversational approaches can increase clients’ internal motivations to take actions toward wellness

The role of a peer support worker complements, but does not duplicate or replace the roles of therapists, case managers, and other members of a treatment team. Peer support workers bring their own personal knowledge of what it is like to live and thrive with mental health conditions and substance use disorders. They support  people’s progress towards recovery and self-­- determined lives by sharing vital experiential information and real examples of the power of recovery. The sense of mutuality created through mutuality sharing of experience is influential in modeling recovery and offering hope (Davidson, Bellamy, Guy, & Miller, 2012)

Video Trainings from BRSS TACS:  Access video trainings that promote recovery-oriented services and supports by highlighting new knowledge areas, hot topics, and cutting-edge programs.
This webpage lists links to numerous training videos. All topics are relevant to Peer Recovery Support though you can choose a topic from the menu at the top of this webpage.
Topics include:

• Peer Support Service
• Recovery Support Services Funding
• Recovery-Oriented Systems and Services
• Systems Integration
• Treatment and Recovery Supports

Note: Each training video listed has the date it was recorded. This website is hosted by SAMHSA.

Substance use disorders (SUD) are, for many, chronic conditions that are typically associated with severe impairments in multiple areas of functioning. ‘Recovery’ from SUD is for most, a lengthy process; improvements in other areas of functioning do not necessarily follow the attainment of abstinence. The current SUD service model providing intense, short-term symptom-focused services is ill suited to address these issues. A recovery-oriented model of care is emerging that provides coordinated recovery support services using a chronic care model of sustained recovery management. Information is needed about substance users’ priorities, particularly persons in recovery who are not currently enrolled in treatment, to guide the development of recovery oriented systems. As a first step in filling this gap, we present qualitative data on current life priorities among a sample of individuals that collectively represent successive recovery stages (N = 356). Findings suggest that many areas of functioning remain challenging long after abstinence is attained, most notably employment and education, family/social relations, and housing. While the ranking of priorities changes somewhat across recovery stages, employment is consistently the second most important priority, behind working on one’s recovery. Study limitations are noted and the implications of findings for the development and evaluation of recovery oriented services are discussed.

The insights of people who have experienced mental health issues are at the core of recovery frameworks. The inclusion of peer support workers in clinical care teams is crucial to a recovery-supportive focus. Peer support workers facilitate egalitarian spaces for non-peer staff and consumers to frankly discuss the lived experience of mental illness. This study was part of a larger evaluation study which aimed to explore the implementation of a newly formed community-based mental health team in South-East Queensland, Australia. The paper reports the role of peer support workers and answers two research questions: “How is peer support work constructed in an interprofessional clinical care team?” and (2) “How do interprofessional mental health clinical care teams respond to the inclusion of peer support workers as team members?” Three themes were identified: peer support worker’ ability to navigate a legitimate place within care teams, their value to the team once they established legitimacy and their ability to traverse the care landscape. Ultimately, successful integration in interprofessional teams was dependent upon the ability of clinical staff to focus on unique strengths that peer support workers bring, in addition to lived experience with mental illness as a carer or consumer.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders and is associated with enormous public health costs. Although AUD and other addictive behaviors have been described as chronic relapsing conditions, most individuals who develop AUD will eventually recover. This narrative review provides an overview of definitions of recovery, with a focus on recovery from AUD. The definitions reviewed include those developed by key stakeholder groups, as well as definitions derived from recent quantitative and qualitative studies of individuals who meet criteria for AUD and attempt to resolve their problems with or without treatment or who self-identify as pursuing or achieving recovery. The literature reviewed supports a definition of recovery as an ongoing dynamic process of behavior change characterized by relatively stable improvements in biopsychosocial functioning and purpose in life. The review concludes that definitions of recovery that rely solely on abstinence from alcohol and the absence of AUD symptoms fail to capture the multidimensional and heterogeneous pathways to recovery that are evident among individuals in general population and clinical samples.