Article Text
Abstract
Background Nearly half of all children in foster care in the state of Illinois are removed from parents with serious substance abuse problems (Ryan and Huang, 2012). Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC), provides health and human services to underserved populations who need treatment for alcohol, drug, and mental health problems and advocates through use of Recovery Coaches for this population in courts, jails, prisons, and child welfare systems.
Methods We have developed an eight week training program on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction practices, adapted for Recovery Coaches, who work with substance involved parents seeking to regain custody of their children. The training program will develop stress reduction techniques designed to reduce compassion fatigue, burnout, and also techniques designed to enhance interpersonal awareness among Recovery Coaches to enhance the working alliance and improve client outcomes.
Results Presently, the Recovery Coach program have serviced over 4,000 substance abusing parents with trying to regain custody with over 5,000 children. The study includes surveys with 21 Recovery Coaches (11 cases and 10 controls); and 300 clients (10 clients per coach). Analyses have determined the change in baseline and three month post intervention measures of mindfulness, compassion fatigue, burnout and secondary trauma among Recovery Coaches trained in MBSR compared to Recovery Coaches who did not receive the intervention. Thirty-eight percent of the clients completed treatment during this reporting period, 26% are in treatment, 22% are currently not in treatment, and 14% failed treatment or were non-compliant.
Conclusions This study contributes to the development of the Recovery Coach Model by examining intricacies of the client-worker engagement process that facilitates positive coach/client outcomes with the goal of preventing self harm activities and domestic violence among families dealing with substance use.
- Substance Abuse
- Self Harm
- Treatment
- Domestic Abuse