Recovery Research Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital; Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Session Description: The Recovery Capital for Adolescents Model (RCAM) is a framework for identifying assets to enhance and barriers to address in supporting youth’s treatment and recovery from alcohol and drug misuse. The RCAM identifies internal resources (coping, motivation, and resilience), financial resources (transportation, access to treatment), social resources (peers, family), and community resources (recovery-oriented programming) that youth can use in their recovery journey. I will illustrate the RCAM and how the theory suggests adolescent change in the recovery process should occur and what barriers to building recovery capital may arise. Using results from recent research, I will then detail specific strategies community support models, such as the Alternative Peer Group (APG), a sober community support for youth, have used to (1) enhance recovery assets for youth with substance use disorders, (2) reduce barriers to youth’s recovery process and help them learn through those experiences, and (3) empower families of youth to support the recovery of their young person. The specific methods and tools used by APGs could be used in a variety of settings, provided adequate tailoring to the population is provided.
This session has been approved by NBCC for NBCC credit.
Learning Objectives:
After this activity participants should be able to
Identify sources of youth recovery capital and barriers to youth recovery
Describe ways that involving youth in recovery supports, such as alternative peer groups, can build recovery capital
Identify ways that parents can be involved to help build youth recovery capital and to build their own capital for parenting an adolescent in recovery