The first 1-2 years of recovery are the most precarious. It’s when people in recovery are likeliest to return to substance use – about a third of people make it through that first year. People who have been through that year know how isolating 和 challenging it can be. 大约有300人,000 people in Minnesota have been through that first year or are currently in it.
知道早期恢复的风险有多大, we set out in 2016 to create a program to help make that first year of recovery easier. 与领先的研究伙伴合作, we created a program that helps fill in the gaps of existing systems. Here’s how we collaborated with those research partners over the past five years to build 和 improve our program model.
为什么同伴支持如此重要
Early years of recovery aren’t just stressful – they change the brain. Ending substance use causes the brain to have a two-fold reaction: it simultaneously becomes more sensitive to stress 和 less able to experience reward. So if something stressful happens during your first year of recovery, odds are you might need more support to get through it.
能得到这样的支持，对Dr. 约翰·凯利，哈佛研究员，他创立了 恢复研究所他称之为“恢复资本”。. Recovery capital includes any resource that helps support someone’s recovery – housing, 就业, 社会联系, 等. 在康复社区, it’s a well-known 和 respected metric used to help measure 和 support recovery. 他展示了如何 social support can help buffer the neurological stress of that first year 和 that peer support is a key part of recovery capital.
我们与博士合作. Kelly helped shape 复苏队 – peer support 和 recovery capital are at the heart of the model. 复苏队 members are there to guide people in recovery through that very vulnerable first year 和 beyond. 有来自 明尼苏达恢复连接, they increase recovery capital by helping people in recovery make plans, 获得情感支持, 获得他们需要的资源.
挖掘数据
复原队的第一年才刚刚开始. 从那以后的每一年, we’ve used evaluation 和 community feedback to gradually improve the program (as we do with many of our programs). Evaluation helps us to catch anything that’s not working 和 build on things that are.
每个评估都需要一个性能度量, 以及复原队, 我们已经准备好了一个:恢复资本. Measuring recovery capital was challenging, since recovery support is intangible. 最终, we started using an existing self-reported recovery capital assessment called the Brief Assessment of Recovery Capital (otherwise known as the BARC-10). People served by 复苏队 members take the BARC-10 regularly, in addition to other surveys that help assess self-esteem, 自我效能感, 以及渴望程度. All of this helps 复苏队 members to work closely with people in recovery to navigate barriers 和 set goals that draw on their strengths.
We’ve found that 复苏队 increases recovery capital. The change from the beginning of the year to the end for participants is often dramatic, as shown by the below chart showing recovery growth across program years. If people served by 复苏队 members come back for more than one visit, 恢复资本增加更多.
上图:22-23年项目的恢复资本增长. Orange represents participants’ average starting recovery capital 和 teal represents their average ending recovery capital.
为同伴支持建立国家证据
Recovery peer support is still relatively new, so there’s little research showing how powerful it is. Building a national evidence base helps improve peer recovery programs like 复苏队, 当然. But it also helps all peer support recovery programs to access government 和 private funding – allowing more programs to exist in Minnesota 和 across the country.
That’s why we carefully collect data: not only to improve the program, but to contribute to the national recovery research l和scape. 一个大part of that is providing high-quality assessment data to researchers.
巴特勒研究中心, another of our research partners, has collaborated with us on our assessment data collection. They’ve taken a careful look at our process to make sure we’re collecting high-quality data. Butler helped identify changes to improve the evaluation process, 包括数字化, 从网站收集反馈, 和 following up with 复苏队 members after their service.
我们还与顶尖的康复研究人员合作 Dr. 大卫最好, who is studying the impact 复苏队 has on 复苏队 members themselves, 谁在自己的康复中. He predicts that 复苏队 may positively impact the recovery capital of 复苏队 members, 太, 不仅仅是他们所服务的人.
在复原队待了六年, we’ve built a program that is a strong support for people struggling with substance use disorder. It wouldn’t have been possible without the research partners that help us build the program 和 improve it over time.
对康复研究感兴趣? 看看 复苏公告 来自研究恢复研究所.
I有兴趣为美国军团服务? 了解更多关于 复苏队. If you’re not sure which program you’re interested in, 了解更多关于我们的节目 和 皇冠官方APP客户端的招聘团队.
