Friday, April 21, 2017

substance abuse

substance abuse

marianna: â hello everybody, and thank youfor joining us for today's webinar, "implementation of the nurturing program for families in substanceabuse treatment and recovery." i'd now like to pass it over to mr ken decerchio.ken decerchio: â thank you marianna, and welcome everybody. my name is ken decerchio, i'm withchildren and family futures national center for substance abuse and child welfare, andwe welcome you to today's webinar. "the nurturing program for families in substanceabuse treatment and recovery." this webinar is the fourth in a series of webinars on evidencebasedpractices, brought to you by the national center on substance abuse and child welfare.we are planning additional webinars in the coming months, hoping to bring you "the matrixmodel," and another webinar, "motivational

interviewing," and we'll probably be planningseveral others as well that we'll keep you informed of.the national center on subs abuse and child welfare is supported by the subs abuse ofmental health services administration, center for subs abuse treatment and the administrationon children, youth and families, children's bureau on the office of child abuse and neglect.having the privilege of operating the national center, we couldn't do it without the supportof both samhsa and the children's bureau. and i've like, with that, to turn it overto elaine stedt, our federal project officer for the national center in subs abuse andchild welfare from the children's bureau. elaine?elaine stedt: â thanks, ken. as ken said,

i would like to welcome everyone on behalfof sharon amatetti, who is my counterpart at samhsa, and also catherine nolan, who ismy boss at the children's bureau, the office on child abuse and neglect.we are thrilled that we are able to have ms. bogage and ms. christmas on as presenterson this very important topic. we know that this is something that is of great interestto the children's bureau, and really looking at issues around implementation, fidelity.and understanding how programs work best to serve children and family that are impactedby substance abuse disorders. we are really looking forward to the discussion throughthe chat function as well as your responses to the polling questions that will come upduring the webinar.

and i really encourage you to engage withthe national center in sub abuse and child welfare, as they have many resources thatare available to you. with that, i will turn it back over to ken. thanks, ken.ken: â thanks, elaine. we appreciate your joining us today. it was a pleasure to haveyou. today's agenda is around the implementation of the nurturing program for families in substanceabuse treatment and recovery. today's webinar as well as the series of webinarsthat we have brought you around evidence based practices is not intended to train you inless than 90 minutes and how to implement this particular program.but it is intended for jurisdiction's, cites, grantee's for those of you who are grantee'swho have selected this program who may be

implementing it now or are contemplating implementingthe program. our focus is around the implementation issueson the nurturing program, if you will. terry and diana are going to talk about their experiencein implementing the program. we want to spend some time today talking about and presenting,monitoring the fidelity of the nurturing program. we all know that that's a critical componentof the implementation of evidence based practices, and then measuring the impact and outcomesof nurturing program for families in substance abuse treatment.today's webinar, again, is to focus on the implementation issues and the experiencesof these two tremendous presenters and the experience they bring in implementing thenurturing program and what their implementation

experience can do to help your implementationexperience. as you are implementing this program or you'reconsidering implementing the nurturing program. with that, i'd like to take a few minutesto introduce our speaker. both terry and diana are with the institute for health and recoveryout of cambridge, massachusetts. the institute for health and recovery is apartner and provider of the commonwealth of massachusetts regional partnership grant programcalled the family recovery project. in partnership with the department of children and families.and the bureau of substance abuse services and advocates for human potential and thatprograms currently being implemented in southeast massachusetts and they have experience inimplementing that regional partnership program

in massachusetts going for seven years rightnow. our first presenter will be terry bogage withthe institute for health and recovery and our second presenter, and they're teamingon this one, is diana christmas, also with ihr. terry is the director of family and childrenservices at the institute for health and recovery. a statewide policy program, systems developingtraining services and research organization. diana christmas, our second presenter todayhas extensive experience in the areas of substance abuse disorders, parenting, hiv aids and maternalchild health. she serves as the parentchild services coordinatorfor the institute for health and recovery's parent and children services component, whereshe cofacilitates parenting groups for families

in substance abuse treatment and recovery.as well as provides local and national training on substance abuse disorders, child developmentand parenting issues. with that, it is my pleasure to introduce terry bogage and dianachristmas from the institute for health and recovery and turn it over to terry to beginour presentation. welcome terry, thank you.terry bogage: â thank you, ken. welcome, to everybody. it's great to be here. good afternoon,if you are from eastern part of the country and good morning if you are not from the westernpart of the country. wanted to say thanks to the children's bureau,the national center for substance abuse and child welfare, to all of you guys, ken, lariana,elaine and nancy who helped us get set up

to do this.we are excited to get to talk about the nurturing program. we hope to hear from folks, answerquestions and have, somewhat of an interactive conversation, although, that's a little difficulton a webinar. i wanted to start off, by acknowledging thatthere has been some confusion about which nurturing program we are talking about. wehave done a lot of training on the nurturing program...we are here, and i am going to giveyou a picture of the cover in a few minutes and you will see the curriculum.but the nurturing program for families and substance abuse treatment and recovery andyou can move onto the next slide, is a trauma informed curriculum and it really integrateswhat we know about substance abuse, recovery,

mental health issues, as well as child development.originally, i am going to talk a little bit about the history and development. diana'sgoing to get into a lot of the implementation details but i want to...i feel like the backgroundof how this came to be, is useful for people to understand.originally, the curriculum was developed through a pregnant and parenting women and infantscenter for substance abuse prevention demonstration project in the early 90's.at that time, it was piloted at two residential women and children's program. what was piloted,was based on dr stephen bavolek's nurturing program for parents of children birth to five.which, at that time, was on csap's promising practices list. those lists have changed overthe years though.

now we are part of nrap, but at that time,it was chosen by the staff who were here because it was a welldocumented curriculum. it wasaimed at reducing abuse and neglect, which is what the aim of this demonstration projectwas. it did have an evaluation instrument thatadultadolescent parenting inventory connected, so we were happy to have that, which i willtalk more about that in a little while. we are now on our third edition of the nurturingprogram, and again, you will see the cover in a few slides.that was published a couple of years ago and really incorporates learning over the past,almost 20 years, since we first published it around. especially around trauma, mentalhealth, and parenting issues. that has all

been incorporated into this third edition.we have a couple of different ways we are going to try to clarify and figure out forall of the participants. which curriculum, if you are using one that you are using andif it is the same one that we are talking about. if you could go onto the next slide.as i said, during the demonstration project, the stephen bavolek's nurturing program waschosen. it was difficult to find the curriculum that really addressed the impact of substanceabuse, cooccurring disorders and trauma. dr bavolek's curriculum has had, and has excellentcore values and guiding principles. it was not specifically a design to address the issuesspecific to parents and families with substance abuse and cooccurring disorders. there areseveral ways in which our curriculum.

the first one, dr bavolek's curriculum andone of which is obviously that focus on substance abuse, cooccurring disorders and trauma. also,in that we really begin with a focus on the parent and the challenges of parenting whenyou are also struggling with all of these other issues.a lot of parenting programs, including bavolek's, start with the child. so the big differencein this one, is that it starts with the parent. a big focus in our curriculum is again, onthe parentchild relationship. we will talk more about that throughout the webinar butthat is a very big focus of ours. those are a couple of the main differences.the curriculum explores the needs of individuals struggling with substance abuse disordersin a variety of ways. each of the topics,

and hopefully we will get into some of thedetails of this, is explored in the context of being in recovery and parenting.for example, how do you help your child with selfesteem issues when you need to focus onyour own self esteem issues? we start with the parents and their selfesteem issues.another example is how do you play with your children or teach your children about playwhen you really never had the experience of playing yourself? each topic focuses on theparents' perspective on that topic and then, it moves on to the child.it talks a lot about helping parents understand how they were parented and that huge impactthat that has on how they're parenting their children. we all know that we can [inaudible11:38] parents, hear our parents' voices sometimes

when we're talking to our children.and that's certainly the case for all parents. we try to help participants understand thoseimpacts on how they're parenting their kids today and again, strengthening that parentchildbond so that families can heal together. if we can go to the next slide, we wantedto ask people, there's a polling opportunity a couple of times throughout the webinar.we wanted to ask people to try to clarify how many people are using the nurturing programfor families and substance abuse treatment and recovery.it would help us to know who in the call is using this curriculum. people could answerthat question and then, we'll find out what the results.marianna: â we have 36 percent of the folks

who responded are using the nurturing programfor families and substance abuse treatment and recovery. 54 percent are not and 11 percentare not sure. terry: â that's helpful. more than half ofyou are not using this program. this is an opportunity to learn about it and over a thirdof you are using it. hopefully, if you have specific questions or concerns or issues thathave come up, we can try to address some of those.for the not sure group, hopefully you'll know by the time we're finished. the next questionis this, are you using another nurturing parent program?marianna: â those results terry, of those who responded, 21 percent say they are usinganother nurturing parent program. 57 percent

say no and 21 percent say they're not sure.terry: â this is helpful. we have an idea that there are about a third of you who areusing this and over half that are not. some of you aren't sure so again, hopefully you'llbe sure by the time we're finished. i'm going to talk a little bit about the informationalcultural model because it's really the theoretical underpinning of the model, of the curriculumwe've developed at the stone center at wellesley college. many of you are probably familiarwith it. it's important to mention it briefly becauseit underlies the curriculum in every way. the model really shifts the emphasis fromseparation from psychological growth being through separation individuation to psychologicalgrowth happening through connection.

that's really the basis for growth and development.the goal of development being to enhance connections with other people and being toured into apersonal connection and interaction. you'll see that throughout the curriculum,that's what we're aiming for. connection, relationship between facilitators and participants,between participants, each other, between parents and their children.i'm going to move to briefly talking about trauma on the next slide. there's been a lotof focus which is great, an emphasis in the field on trauma and understanding the verystrong correlation between histories of trauma and substance abuse, cooccurring disorders.this is an old study, from [inaudible 15:03] but i still like to use it because it's sorelevant. women in community samples record

a lifetime history of physical and sexualabuse that ranges from 36 to 51 percent while women with substance abuse problems reporta lifetime history ranging from 55 to 99 percent. we approach everyone in our group, women andmen with the assumption that there may be a trauma history, the universal precautionapproach. we assume that participants have experienced trauma, we treat everyone in avery respectful and traumainformed way. it's an important statistic and an understandingthat most of us have now that trauma plays such a key role in so many of the participantsthat we're working with live. i'll move now to the guiding values of the nurturing program.i don't want to read through all of these but you can read them. the experience of beingin the groups and diana will talk about this

when she talks about implementation, is initself a very nurturing experience. we hope that parents can internalize someof that nurturing and feel and really understand the benefits of taking care of yourself. thenthe importance of taking care of yourself first, so that you have the reserve and yourtank is filled up so that you can better take care of your children.on the next slide, there's a lot of opportunities for having fun within the curriculum. there'srespect for yourself and others in all aspects of your life. we talk about respecting whereyou live, where you work, where you bring your kids to child care or day care.we try to talk about that respect in all of the environments that you may be in. a bigpiece of one of our guiding values is about

recovery happens in families and in relationshipsas well as in the individual. everyone hopefully by this point knows thatthis is a family disease and recovery is a family process. one of the guiding valuesis that this is the process that happens within families. doing work around parenting andparents and children together is a very important piece of that.from the next slide talks about nurturing the parent and the way that the curriculumdoes that. there's many ways that the nurturing program...nurtures group participants. thecurriculum sessions are very structured. it each begins the same, ends the same, hasa similar structure so that people can know what to expect each week. there's lots ofopportunities to build connections within

the curriculum.as i said, between participants, between participants and facilitators, we can talk if there's time.hopefully there will be, to talk about a children's curriculum that we're about to complete thatcan be used in conjunction with this. so, there's opportunities to build those connectionsbetween parents and children. there's lots of opportunities to create that safe placefor selfexploration. we talk about the importance and i'll talk in diana more about this laterbut helping to build the ability to communicate well with your kids.being honest with your kids, not avoiding conversations, this is one of the questionsthat may have come in about talking to kids about your substance abuse. there are placesin the curriculum that help with how to have

those conversations depending on the child'sage. their developmental stage but really how tobuild those connections and have those honest conversations. again very participatory, forthose of you who are using the curriculum, it's very interactive.there is very little didactic facilitators standing up and talking at the participantsvery hands on and it's lots of fun and creativity. one of the other things i want to add hereis that the approach throughout the curriculum is very nonjudgmental.we are expecting parents as the experts on their children and at such we expect the parentsto come in as the experts on their children. not only is there a nonjudgmental approach,we are looking to parents and saying, "you

know the most about your children, let's bringthat into the equation." the quote that we like to use, 'we teach whatwe know but we replicate who we are'. this is something that is mentioned in guidingvalues and i'll talk about it a little bit here. many curriculum sessions begin as isaid before with parents, how a particular issue impacts the parents.and then it moves to the impact on the children and the understanding that impact on the children.hopefully i'm not upside, we are having a slight technical thing here, i'll fix it,ok, sorry about that. we go back to what's familiar when we are parenting our kids andwe know that parents do that too. what we experience in childhood is what'sfamiliar to most of us. hopefully that makes

sense, sorry there is a little bit of backgroundnoise there. we had a slight technical moment here but we are fine.if you want to move on to the next slide, briefly the curriculum is very much designedto be adopted which is why it says 12 to 17 session. each session is designed to be 90minutes, we have a variety adaptations already developed because of different projects we'vedone over the years. we have a shorter version, 12 session version,the full curriculum is 17 sessions but we work with the programs and providers figureout what it is that would be most useful for their participants and we can tailor sessionsby the needs of the program. as i mentioned before, each session is designedin the same way, information for the groups'

facilitator they always begin with an icebreakerand close with a wrap up. they also, i think was very helpful, is include additional informationon issues or concerns that might come up. there is a particular topic we've anticipatedfrom doing this for long, issues that have come up during those session topics and talkabout those in the introduction to that particular session. the curriculum is unfortunately onlyavailable in english at this time. but it does respond to an array of learningstyles, there is not a lot of intensive reading or didactic work as said. people with multipleintelligences and literacy levels have had success with their curriculum and it's reallyquite accessible to a wide range of people. lots of opportunities to explore culture bothof your own culture as well as the cultures

inherited as of other participants in thegroup through different crafts and sharing and activities on a variety of topics.in the next slide, i'm not going to read through each topic but as a couple of examples thenext two slides list all these topics. we always start with hope, that is quite intentional.a lot of people in early recovery come into our group unnecessarily thrilled to be there.we do say it's a voluntary group but if you are living in a program where group participationis mandatory, it's not all that voluntary sometimes but it's a session that does builda sense of hope, we are hopeful that you are in the room, we are hopeful that you are there.often people leave that session feeling much more positive about being in the group thanwhen they came in...diana?

diana christmas: â ...this also add that itsets the tone because some of the basic things that people assume that someone who is inrecovery will totally understand, is that hope is a new transition for moving from activeaddiction to what hope means. they may have had some of that experiencewhen they were younger but that whole slant in culture of actively using changes the wholeperspective of what words mean and experiences mean. they are not always clear, it's somethingthat's basic as hope, everybody knows what hope is.but not necessarily if you are coming from a place where it's been part of your activeaddiction process to deny hope. you do not believe that hope is existing that's why youallow to continue to stay actively using because

it's hopeless.we spent quite a lot of time talking about that and connecting moving from active thinkingto getting a more positive perspective and hope is the first one that sets that tone,it's totally important. terry: â thanks diana and for example communicationi talked about before we talk about how to talk to your children about those difficulttopics like why you may have to go away for a while if you are in treatment. again dependingon the age and developmental level of your children.but we really tackle those difficult topics that people haven't talked about but in avery safe and nonjudgmental way. if you go on to the next slide those are the rest ofthe topics and each one again starts with

the parents, there is lots of specific concreteways to practice. for example managing stress we practice breathing,we practice having a very nurturing experience that you can take with you outside of thegroup. people talk about that a lot as something that's been really helpful for them.in recovery love and loss, we again purposefully have that towards the very end because that'swhere we really tackle all of the losses that may have occurred due to your experience withsubstance abuse. diana: â before you move on, hi it's dianaagain, wanted even though i'm going to talk a little bit about later on, want to pointout the alternative sessions for the fathers that are listed there because as we were doingthis curriculum and doing the groups.

often men gave us a lot of feedback aroundsome of the specific issues that may be going on with them. we really took some time inworking with them and developing some sessions that might lean more, closer to the pointsin perspective that men might be struggling with.not only due to their recovery and being involved in the criminal system but the messages theymight have gotten early in life around what it might mean to be a parent and that someof that needs to be revisited that they can feel like they could be involved with theirchildren. and if they have something to bring to thetable, even though they might not be employed at this time. but the priority was reallywas being involved in their child's life and

how do you do that? give them some of therestrictions of what men are going through at this point in time.terry: â thank you. on the next slide i thought we would stop for a minute and asking youall another question. we are used to doing this kind of training in person and havinga lot of interaction and discussions. it's a little bit of a different experiencefor diana and i to be doing this on a webinar but we thought it would be a nice opportunityto get people stops on this question or this statement. participants should have some cleantime or sobriety before attending parenting group.marianna: â terry as you can see the response categories, seven percent of respondents saythat they strongly agree with this statement,

45 percent say that they agree, three percentsay that they don't know, 31 percent say they disagree with the statement.and 14 percent say that they strongly disagree with that statement.diana: â interesting, that's a quite a broad range.terry: â a pretty even split between every... diana: â hi it's diana and the reason whywe even ask this question is given that this whole curriculum is a partnership betweenthe participants and the staff and the staff have to buy into it for it to really workthe way that it needs to. that we need to also work with staff aroundgetting some clarity of having them work through whatever their issues might be around whetherthey believe clients already give them whatever

their treatment process might be ready toeven begin this process. often a lot of the work that has to happen,is working with staff with people who are going to be implementing this to work throughsome of their challenges and their barriers and that happens even before we begin to talkabout what their facilitation skills might be.that it's really important to begin to do that and that the agency buys into, or theleaders of the agency, buys into this whole nurturing process. because that's what willsustain it over a period of time. it's important to address that and it can come from any wayand that's fine. that's part of the work that needs to be done.terry: â i'm going to turn it over to diana

in a minute to talk about implementation butthe answer is on our poll, our very telling because that gives an example of what youmight walk into when you enter a program. staff come from a variety of places and thisis a big question for a lot of people. diana's point is important that, these conversationsshould happen beforehand so that you know everyone is on the same page or at least closeenough to the same page that they know what's happening in these groups.and can buy into it and support the participants even outside of the group.diana: â because often you can measure whether a program is being implemented and you cancheck off, "yes i did this, yes i did that," but if you are not emotionally tied into it,it's not going to work and you are not going

to get the outcome that you need to giventhe population that you are working with. you have to believe in the sense and the conceptof nurturing and believe in terms of this exchange, to even begin to operate it becauseyou'll go through the curriculum but that doesn't necessarily mean that people havegotten what they need. that's why this whole idea...terry: â can we go to the next slide, please? diana: â that's why this whole idea of whenthis curriculum was developed is that, it be flexible. yes it is too tiring for familiesand participants that are in treatment but the reality is, we have expanded it way beyondthat to work with populations that may have any issues.be it trauma, domestic violence. not only

because what we're really talking about isrecovering from some real difficult experiences that have impacted your behavior, your thinking,therefore your capacity around parenting. whatever those experiences are, you've beentaken away, or the client has been taken away from nurturing and it's almost like relearning,or maybe they never got it, and being able to get those pieces. that's what's so important,that it is flexible and terry mentioned it earlier.in terms that it can be adapted. some of the examples in some of the places that it's beenadapted is that it's used in outpatient services, not only used in residential. we've used itin homeless shelters. we've also used it in prisons because it is that flexible.people really do need to learn how to nurture

themselves. they think they know what thatis, but often they really, really don't. the other thing that is clearly extremely importantis that each of the topics, that each of the segments really promotes this psychological,emotional experience. that is nonthreatening and based on clientdirection of where they're at within the group. therefore, you may start off at one levelof talking about, say for instance growth and development and you talk about the differentstages of erikson. we don't only leave it at that point, thereason why we even begin to talk about it is, first, to help the parents, the clients,understand what their childhood experiences, may be putting them at risk or put them atrisk, or even the positive ones.

having them to understand what happened tothem, where they're at with that, what they need to gain and what they already have andhow do you build on that? the child development, erikson stuff usually is used to explain toparents where their child is at, given what stages of development they're at.but we first begin to do that with their own self, with their own childhood and that seemsto make a major, major difference, especially for people who are in early recovery, whohaven't really been connecting any of that emotional stuff.they know they feel inadequate but they're not real clear where that began. they thinkit began when they started using drugs, but it might be the other way around. they startedusing drugs because early on, their selfesteem

wasn't built the way it needed to be.we use those opportunities, at any given point, to be able to expand on what might be goingon with the client. terry: â could you go to the next side, please?diana: â the whole idea really is to provide a safe forum. it's important that the clients,the parents that are coming into the nurturing program, that they also have some other support.you want to think about that, whether they're getting counseling, whether they're in treatmentbut they're getting something else because the bottom line is that these programs, ourgroups, really are going to be a foundation to build on other things.it's important and to build this safe environment. why is an important because clients need tofeel safe, about being able to implement some

of the practices that we're going to be givingthem in the training as well. also, what happens is that there's these messagesabout, that someone should automatically know how to parent. so often, the feelings of feelinginadequate about parenting are kept secret, only because we're talking about a populationthat's becoming accustomed to keeping secrets. it's really important to normalize the feelingsthat one gets about not feeling like they know how to parent, which is all of us. anyonethat's a parent understands that. i don't care how many kids you've raised, each onechallenges your sense of inadequacy [laughs] on whether you.on how well you parent. coupled with the whole issues of being in early recovery. helpingthem to break those pieces out really, truly

makes a difference.terry: â and i'll add one point about that. this point of everyone has some difficultyin parenting, it really, it points to that many parenting struggles are universal. thatends up building commonality and reducing stigma for our participants.oftentimes, facilitators are also parents and so there's definitely a connection inthat way. these are universal struggles, so it's not an "us" as expert and "them" as students,it's really much more of a shared experience. diana: â it's really important that thereis a major focus on understanding all of what happens based on parental substance abuseand the residue when you come into recovery around really being able to handle anythingbeyond your own personal development.

what really is of value within this particularcurriculum is that we spend a lot of time helping people break these feelings up intoareas that they can begin to understand and also help them to work out some skills tobe able to address it. the first is being able to identify the feeling,the feeling of guilt, the feeling of shame and how that might trigger some other stuffuntil you're not able to. often, i'll quickly mention an example, is often, our motherswork with their children. and they've got an infant and this infanthas every little shoe that's guccilucci. they have an outfit for every half an hour andtheir whole focus is really on trying to make themselves feel more comfortable as a parent.so often what happens is that we have to help

them to break that out so they're not overcompensatingfor their shame and their guilt. something simple like the child crying can trigger somany things and the child may only be crying for maybe a minute.and we have to support the parent around, "time it so it doesn't feel like it's beena half an hour and it's really only been a couple of minutes. it's really ok, you don'thave to panic." helping them because every experience feels so intense when you're inearly recovery. can we move onto the next? some of the implementationchallenges that we have supported programs around, and it depends what kind of programs.some, it's not so much an issue of retention or recruit...ion?terry: â yes.

diana: â [laughs] because often, we are workingwith residential programs where there already is a captured audience, so that's not necessarilyalways an issue. since we have expanded it over the last five or six years to programsthat are dealing with parents that are outpatient. some of the issues that usually do come upis childcare, what is the best time to do the group, consistency, them being able toget there on a regular basis, or even get there. there's never been an issue as of yetthat i know, where people. once they've gone to a couple of groups don'treally be able to follow through, that they are interested in following through. they'refirst threatened by the whole idea of parenting and maybe be assuming that you're suggestingthat they're already inadequate.

so, it's really about developing this andcoming from the approach of healthier relationships. one first with yourself, then you'll be ableto have better relationships with your children, with your family, with your spouses.it's like where we come from with this, so that they can really begin to understand what'shappening. sometimes, often, what begins to happen is you have to think about the schedulein the group. sometimes you plan to do the orientation andthen it becomes a little more clientdirected around the time that the groups will be. theaverage group really may not always be 90 minutes.but the sessions are so flexible that you're able to pull out what makes sense to you withinthat session, given the knowledge level or

experience that you think your participantsmay need. often, if you're dealing with outpatient ormaybe a shelter, because we've worked with domestic violence or domestic partner programs,that often what'll happen is that we will begin the groups and instead of focusing onsubstance abuse. we would talk about recovering from some realdifficult experiences. usually by the time we're like 4th or 5th session, then they becomea little more flexible and then begin to selfidentify, often what would happen.then the other piece is really around facilitators becoming comfortable in the groups and thathappens, our specific training and how we do this is there's a cofacilitation piecethat happens. there is a premeeting before

the group and there is a postmeeting for thegroup. and normally what happens is we will discusswhat will happen within each group, what pieces they feel comfortable with taking on, whatpieces they don't feel like they're quite ready to do and as they continue to stay apart of that cofacilitation. because that's the program staff that's doingthis, they will begin to take on more and more. by the time you're at the 12th session,15th session, the facilitator is really doing the program and myself or my staff personare really supporting them around that cofacilitation piece.but it really is about supporting the staff and being comfortable with that model. so,also, in addressing the skills...

terry: â go to the next slide.diana: â oh yeah, i'm sorry, go to the next slide. now i got to tell somebody. [laughs]also, what beings to happen is that people wonder, "well, what kind of skills do youneed to have in order to do this group?" you should have some understanding, certainly,of substance abuse, no doubt. and a little bit of knowledge about childdevelopment would also really help, and having had experience doing groups before. the restof it can really be taught and supported over a period of time. it's really not that mandatedthat you need to have a counseling degree or anything on that order, really.it's really about your commitment and having some knowledge. is this the next slide? thenext slide please. i want to talk a little

bit about the adaptions to the nurturing program.what begins to happen is the signs, the parentchild interacting, things that we already have.we've looked at some other models that make sense to incorporate in there and so partof it is this whole idea of being able to selfobserve with your interaction with yourchild and being able to self or identify what is going on with your child.often, this work is important to do because people will have been actively using drugsfor a very long time, will be very selfcentered. it will be very difficult for them to be childcenteredwithout really getting some information and some support to be able to consider what isgoing on with the child. it's very interesting that sometimes you'llhear parents say, child is an infant, maybe

two months, three months old, and they'resaying, "she is doing this deliberately. every time i go to sit down, after i fed her andchanged her diaper and need to sit down and get some rest.she starts screaming and hollering. i know that she's doing that deliberately." the realidea is to help them to pull away from that selfcentered perspective and get them to understandthat children do that and it really has nothing to do with you or her trying to get afteryou. terry: â part of in the, this is terry. inthe third edition, how we've been able to address those issues is through incorporatingchildparent psychotherapy concepts, reflective functioning and some of the learning we'vehad through other projects here, that ucpp.

that really helps parents to see from theperspective of their child, which is really part of the third edition and diana's goingto talk a little bit more about the other specific changes in the third edition, interms of an adaptation. diana: â can i go back to addressing facilitationskills, because this is often a major concern in terms of how you measure that. terry, areyou going to talk about that later on, about how one measures that?[crosstalk] terry: â we do, we will, yeah.diana: â so the only thing i really want to say about this is that that is an ongoingpiece in terms of supporting staff around being able to really implement this with anemotional commitment. we found that you can

check, like i said earlier.you can check off and a facilitator can do everything that one expects or that is assignedin the curriculum. but for some reason, it still seems like it doesn't feel like it'smade that type of connection with their participants and often.it has to do with the facilitator needing additional support around really being involvedin that. the only other thing i would say that one of the things that we also have learnedis that you don't want to be too heavysided in terms of other experiences.or interaction that these clients have with the staff that are cofacilitating. you wantto think about that, are these counselors, is this there...a clinical person anyway?you want to be able to think about that and

how to be able to follow up on that.terry: â right, sometimes we've found that people are cofacilitating obviously have differentroles in the program. if your role is more about making sure rules are followed or ifpart of your role is following up and setting limits or taking away privileges.it can be hard to slip back and forth into cofacilitating the groups. we should probablymove ahead then to two slides around adaptation for parents and children interactions andon this slide, i'm going to...diana's going to talk about the well child curriculum.i want to say, one of the things that we did because we've heard a lot of people reallyinterested in, for good reason, worked with children as well. because this curriculumwas really developed for parents, unlike that...nurturing

parent programs that have side by side children'sgroups. this historically hasn't. although in certaininstances we have been able to include children in building family recovery. it was a projectyears ago that i worked on here where we created, with another organization, a children's curriculumto use as a companion that has. based on age of kids, similar session topics.the kids were working on that topic while the parents worked on the topic in their groupand then they came together for an activity. the well child curriculum is something thatis almost finished and ready for publication that diana's going to talk about in a minuteand that is another opportunity to work with kids as well as with the parents, doing thisparent group.

we're going to stop here and the next slideis another polling question. again, to keep everybody awake and get your thoughts on someof these really tough issue that do impact the impact you can have doing groups, beingaware of people's thoughts on these topics. parents in residential treatment have betteroutcomes when their children are with them. marianna: â kerry and diana, if you can seethe results. about 70 percent of folks agree, that's split between 20 percent strongly agreeingand 50 percent agreeing. about 23 percent respond that they don't know and about sixpercent are in the disagree or strongly disagree categories.diana: â thank you. diana back. i want to quickly run over some of the major "it" pointsof the well child curriculum. what begins

to happen with this is that children needthe opportunity to be able to express themselves and learn exactly what they're feeling andwhat's going on. the well child curriculum and the groups arereally designed to help them to do that. if you go to the next slide, that's not the nextone. terry: â yep.diana: â that's not what i have. the well child begins to talk and focus on really helpingthe children to also recover from whatever trauma they may have been experienced. itdoes promote resilience, it helps them to learn how to break the secret of abuse inthe family and brings up. and gives them a safe forum to be able totalk about what might be going on with them,

in a safe environment. it's not as long asthe curriculum for the parents but if you go to the next slide, you'll get some ideaof what the sessions are. what we look at within those slides and eachof them, very much like the nurturing program, has a set of objectives, certainly lots ofactivities, that really help them to do that, and helps them to work through some of what'sgoing on. the world child curriculum is also prettyadaptable because what it will do is there are certain activities that are offered basedon the age of the children that may be involved in the curriculum.these are all the topics, but there are alternative activities that are much more age appropriate,give them whatever age per...whatever person,

the children will be coming into the groups.terry: â and if people are interested in the world child curriculum, we are happy to giveyou guys more information. we obviously can't spend that kind of time on it now, we wantedto let you know that it's out there and it's going to be available very soon for folks...diana: â we already talked about most of this stuff, in terms of the third edition. onething we haven't really talked about was the guide for individual use. in that there isa small pamphlet, a guide, where you can take the curriculum and use it to work with individualfamilies maybe in individual sessions. either in individual or outpatient. if a parentneeds maybe to have a little more support than what the group has offered, then youwill be able to take this guide and pull the

information from the curriculum.and be able to make it much more intense and address more specific whatever might be goingwith that. terry: â one of the ways we found it usefulis because people either aren't ready for any number of reasons, to sit in a group setting,or they may have missed a group or two. people may join late and we want to catch them upwith some of the topics. the individual guide can be used in a numberof different ways. the next part is about being a fathersession. which you have talkedsome about. diana: â i have the only thing that i wouldlike to add about this, like i said, there are specific issues that men need to dealwith and work through, being substance abusers

or not. that's what these three sessions do.we offer the three sessions either as alternatives and we identify where these alternatives mightfit. or you could add them on, because often they still do need to have some of that otherinformation that may be coming from the scheduled routines.those are the three sessions. could you move on and i thought you've talked about the individualguide. terry you wants anything more about that particular piece?terry: â no. if you can go to the next slide marianna, and we can see if there are anyquestions that have come up. by now we've done a lot of talking, so we'd love to hearif there's any questions from anybody in the audience.audience member: â thank you. we do have one

question. the first question is, "what agegroup participates in the, world child program? terry: â the curriculum was originally designedfor 5 to 10yearolds. we expanded it to go more like 4 to12yearolds. within that largerange, we have specific sessions for...it's divided up into four to six or sevenyearolds,and then seven or eight to 10yearolds, and then 10 to 12yearolds.there are different activities in each session broken by age, because that's a very largeage range as you know, but the general range is from about 4 to 12.audience member: â thank you. one more other question is, "as a follow up to your discussionabout facilitating and cofacilitating...you spoke about cofacilitation. could you talka little bit more about who those roles are

or who it is that cofacilitates the group?"you mentioned one might be treatment staff and is the other a trainer, a supervisor?could you talk a little bit more about that? diana: â yes. they usually are trainer orthey're someone that has more experience in doing the cofacilitating. one way or a coupleof things that we do is that, we go out to the different programs and we work with thestaff and do the whole 17 group cycle with them.another way is that we offer annual training's twice a year for people to come and learnhow to do or implement it. the other thing is that i have definitely gone out and terry,has specially gone across the country to other social agencies and trained a wealth of staffto be able to do it.

i've gone to atlanta and did all of the "substanceabuse and maternal and child staff," and then they went out to the different agencies throughoutthe states. they cofacilitated either with the clinical person, social worker, or...whatatlanta did, they took their "perinatal program." and their "substance abuse program" and theycoupled those two together. until they went out after they were trained by me in the twodaytraining. they went out different agencies and started training other couples off likethat. terry: â and in general it really dependson the program as diana mentioned earlier, there is not a requirement around educationallevel or particular background. we hope people have a commitment to parenting, have an understandingof substance abuse and child development.

and really want to be there and have an interestin the group. but in different programs, that could be the child care staff, that can betreatment staff versus the treatment program [inaudible 59:43] staff. it really variesfrom program to program. but when we are training folks around the country.our hope is that, people that have an interest and ideally are planning to stay there fora little while because it's a lot of working with each other and then when there is turnoverthe hope would be that, someone is always trained in the curriculum and so can thenwork with the next person. i hope that answers the question.marianna: â yes, thank you. and we have one more question for this quotient of the webinar.are there builtin times for the facilitator

to observe parentchild interaction?terry: â there aren't builtin times. it's through the curriculum, different programsagain do it differently so there are programs that build that time and have parentchildinteraction time, but it is not part of this curriculum that there is a parentchild togethertime. diana: â but often what will do, we meaningpeople, the staff...going over the next few working with the program. what we will dois that, if the clinical person, not the one that's in the actual groups, we will meetwith them to update them on what's going on with the children.and the parent at that particular point or what we have focused on with the parent andwhat we think, is where they need to be right

now in terms of application of what we'veshared in terms of information. often the clinical person might be one ofthe staff that will come into the act and be a part of the actual training.marianna: â that's it for now. we will have more time for questions as the webinar continues,if you'd like to move in to the fidelity section, terry and diana.terry: â thank you. this is terry, i am going to talk...you can go to the next slide aboutsome ways that we've monitored fidelity. there is a form attached to this slide that it'sproperly a little bit difficult to see for some of you. but we wanted to give an example,and this handout is available to all of you. one of the ways that you can monitor fidelitythat we've used in the past, where each session

you wait for an observer supervisor, ratedifferent components of the session. in massachusetts, as diana mentioned, what we do is we tendto meet before. when we are cofacilitating the parenting staffhere with the program we meet before and after the group to talk about preparation for thegroup before, what might come up, the content for the day, who's going to do which section,and then after to really go ever and reflect how the group went.if using a fidelity form, which can be really helpful, you can reflect on the reading. cofacilitators,with or without ihr staff involved, can be really helpful for each other to give eachother feedback and we encourage that about what went well ,where we might have lost people.what seems to really resonate with people.

that how, some of the ways we've used thefidelity form here. in terms of challenges, there are a number of those. one of them is,when we adapted the program, we encouraged adapting the program to meet your specificneeds, adapting the nurturing program. obviously that can sometimes be a challengeto fidelity that we stay aware of. i eluded to staff turnover and training issues that'sthe big challenge for our program. we will work with the program, they'll getthe training, i'm sure people are familiar with this, be our star facilitator and thenleave the program and we're back to square one again. staff turnover and retraining staffcan be a big challenge. client turnover or clients missing sessionsthroughout can also be a challenge to fidelity

because obviously, they're not getting thefull dose of the program. one of the biggest is having funds to be able to evaluate theprogram, doing follow up surveys. we have not had the opportunity to followpeople post nurturing program except for at the very end. we haven't been able to checkin six months or three months later to see if what we talked about has stuck so to speak.money for evaluation is certainly a challenge and a barrier. the lack of good parentingmeasures is another one. we haven't come across good tools to help measure what it is thatwe're trying to measure in terms of parenting and what folks are learning in the groups.if you go to the next slide, here's another example where this is for the whole session,so it's not just one week. the last slide

was for one session, this is the whole series.you can use this an instrument. again, you have copies of this, so don't worryif you can't see it, where you measure each of these. how did the icebreaker go? was itdone, was it not done, done a little, done a lot, all the way down through your engagingstyle, your ability to listen and the overall performance.lots of different things are measured each week in the program, so that's another exampleof a fidelity instrument that we've used. we can stop here, that's what i have to talkabout in terms of fidelity and if there are other questions, we'd be happy to answer themat this point. marianna: â terry and diana, one of the questionsthat did come through from participants was

how do you address fidelity when you're implementingthe nurturing program for families in a one on one setting or in home?terry: â great question and it's difficult. if you don't have someone there observingyou, one thing that we talk about doing is selfrating. using that form and trying torate yourself and using supervision to talk about the interaction.and how it went to get a sense of how well you were able to stick to fidelity.diana: â the only other thing is, that we have been working with the social workersthat would be going out and doing the individual and helping them to come up with some scalethat measures whether this is working or not. and whether they're comfortable with whataspects and what not.

bottom line [inaudible 67:14] is that we comeback and we talk about what happened, how did it go, what might have been the issues?what were you able to get to, what were you not able to get to and why?it's like adding discussion to the chart that terry showed you but meeting with the individualswho are going to meet with the family. doing a schedule and figuring out what the objectivesmight be based on the particular sessions they're going to do.each one of the sessions in the curriculum have their own set of objectives and a goal.if they choose that particular session, that one of the ways that they're going to measureis what was the outcome based on what you wanted to accomplish based on the goal ofthe objective of that particular session.

they begin off by first taking notes and thenmeasuring, trying to develop some measurement that makes sense for them.terry: â does that answer the question? marianna: â that's great and one more questionin this area, you made reference to the adaptability of the curriculum. is there a specific orperhaps minimum number of sessions that you would recommend?or maybe some key sessions that you would recommend people include when they're deliveringthe program? terry: â that's a great question and we'vetalked a lot about this. i feel it's hard to give a number. how we've done it in thepast was when we did the 12 session curriculum, the shortened version, this is years ago buti believe we had a cut off of you have to

be there at least seven or eight sessions.or something like that for the 12. depending on what the needs of the program are, i wouldrecommend someone talking to us directly about what sessions...i would hate to say this isthe required or that is not a required sessions. we certainly have thought about what we thinkare key sessions that we wouldn't want people to cut but it depends on the needs of theprogram. based on what they come up with, then we can work with them around...diana: â what to do and how to do it. terry: â and a minimum number of session requirements.diana: â that's something that we would do automatically with any program outside oftreatment because the reality is that often, you're not going to get someone who's notin the program or captured audience to come

for the whole 17 weeks. you really begin tothink about it. the other thing that we've been very creativeabout is sitting with programs and combining some of the sessions together.that there's a natural fit with feelings and selfesteem for example and what we'll do iswe would develop a session pulling from both of those that would make sense where you couldcapture both issues. does that help? marianna: â yes, thank you. i like to pointout we have about 15 minutes left. if we want to briefly cover these last few slides sowe can leave a couple of minutes for wrap up and any final questions.terry: â if you want to move to the next slide, i mentioned the adult adolescent parentinginventory. that was the tool also developed

by stephen bavolek that we have used a lotand a lot of programs use, to measure the effectiveness of the nurturing program.in the next slide, i'll show you the core domains but before that, i want to mentionthat we have used a lot of participant surveys or session evaluations. we get a lot of qualitativefeedback which we'll share at the end from participants. it is incredibly helpful sayingwhat's been most useful about this session. what's been least useful, what would peoplelike to see more or less of. participant surveys are a really great tool to use and we havesamples of those if anyone's interested for that qualitative feedback. if you go to thenext slide, i can show you briefly the core domains that the aapi measures.it looks at appropriate developmental expectation,

empathy, where the parent has empathy forchild alternative to corporal punishment, appropriate roles whether a child is in achild role or more like a parent role and then one he calls oppressing children's powerand independence. which we don't love the language there butit's about children having their own voice. those are the domains that aapi measures,we have had the challenges with the instruments which i will be happy to talk about more.i didn't have the time but it is useful in measuring attitudes and beliefs around parentingpractices. diana: â and we do a preimpose.terry: â right and we do a preimpose. the next slide is an example of a session of valuationthat you can use with the parent which i mentioned,

i forgot that it was in here and this againin much more readable print is available to you all.and this is an example of what we might ask participants after each group. you can makeit much shorter than this, this is a long one but did you learn anything new? i've youchanged any of your behaviors as a result of this group? that thing, that's an examplefor you to use. diana: â and we do this half way through thesession and then we do it at the end again. terry: â next is some resources, these aresome of the three articles that have been published related to the nurturing program,any of which i can get you copies of if anybody is interested. again as i mentioned, resourceissues we haven't been able to do the study

that where we have a control group.where we have a sample that gets the curriculum and a sample that doesn't. we haven't beenable to do a lot of post discharge follow up, there is a limitation to the resourcesand the studies we've been able to do but these are the articles.then finally some of the quality feedback, i love to share this with people because theseare what some of our many, many participants have said over the years to us. "i won't readthem all but i'll give you a couple of examples." "most of what i learned had to do with waysi thought i should parent and that there is really no rule book or manual to being a goodparent." "i also spent time learning about my child's boundaries." lots of great feedback,you can read through these yourself.

if you go to the next slide, i like this firstone. how to have fun, i learned how to have fun as a clean and sober person, how to recognizecertain feelings and situations and how i can deal with them.how to interact with other people and how to nurture myself, my family and friends andfeel comfortable with it. the other quote that i love, i love them all but i'll readthe third one, what nurturing is. how to nurture and care for myself as wellas others that i'm truly worthwhile human being who deserves safety, respect and happiness.that is what we have, we can move on to question and discussions in the remaining 10 minutes,marianna? marianna: â thank you. we'd also like to remindeverybody if we are not able to address your

question during the webinar, we will be ableto have some additional follow up with terry and diana to have them answer it.and we will post those by next week with the additional materials which will be availableon cpm for our pg grantees and also generally for everyone on the cfs website.a couple of questions in minutes that we have left, one of the questions is, how do yousequence in or perhaps phase in nurturing parents in treatment programs? when do youstart including people in groups, is it very early on in treatment or what have you foundto be successful? terry: â this again varies by program a lot,some programs have a requirement that people who enter the program have to participatein the groups, which wouldn't be our choice

to have people joining in the group but groupscan be mandated in programs and we work with that as best we can.in some programs we work with the program and their requirements. we don't have a requirementof a certain amount of clean time or recovery time. we welcome people in very early in recoveryas well as people who have substantial recovery time and often that works well together.do you want to comment that? diana: â also when i went to programs likeworking with the homeless population, we worked with people who are still active, who arestruggling to get some consistency sobriety. we'll work with clients like that as wellbut keeping that in mind. we will tailor each of the topics with thestruggle of trying to get some recovery and

what that will be like. the hope is that,you would get clean and what do you think you need to be able to do that and focusingin on the pieces. if the majority of the people in the roomwere not one only that they were still struggling with their sobriety. you would easily do that.i'll quickly say, if you have the support of a counselor or the program and understandingthat piece, then you can adapt it however you need to.terry: â part of what works well in the residential programs, when people join in with folks thathave been in the group for a while, is that the support that they build with each other,the peer support is incredible and more the experience members of the group in terms ofbeing part of the group.

but also having maybe more recovery time canreally be positive influences as everyone knows on the newer folks to the group. ithas worked out quite well in some circumstances but it is very program specif.marianna: â i'm going to try and squeeze in one more quick question before we give itover to ken here for final comments and that is, is the aapi limited to a specific agerange of kids? terry: â no it's not. it's not about specificdevelopmental issues, it's really focused on parenting attitudes and beliefs, the questionshave to do with as a parent do you think this or that particular way of being with yourchildren is good or bad? strongly agree to strongly disagree.it's not age specific to the kids.

marianna: â thank you. ken, over to you.ken: â thanks marianna and thanks terry and diana for sharing your experiences and bringingto life the realities and the challenges and the success and hope by implementing thiscurriculum. i thought it was interesting the differentsetting, in which you implement it or able to implement it in the modifications thatyou can implement this for folks, who are either in very early recovery or not treatmentat all as well as within a treatment program. perhaps maybe you want to comment, this couldbe a reinforcer, certainly it is a reinforce. but even maybe it could be away that a parentassesses how their own substance abuse or abuse is affecting their ability to parent.they could be motivating, is a better way

to frame it for furthering their commitmentto recovery or assessing whether they need to get into treatment as a result of participatingin this program, any comments on that? terry: â i would agree. we know that childrenare parents' most strongest motivator to get and stay in treatment and this group bringsto life a lot of those issues that parents are struggling with in a nonjudgmental wayand supportive way. it can really support and build on parentsinnate desire to parent their kids. diana: â exactly and that's been the experiencethat we have been exposed to base working with some of the recovery connections whichare drop in centers. we've done the parenting groups there and then we've motivated parentsin lots of different ways.

one, to either seek some other support, additionalsupport and seeking recovery. you are correct. ken: â i appreciate, thanks for that. as aperson in the past has a treatment background and then i fast forward to the work that weare doing in the national center and we come to recognize and you mentioned earlier dianaand terry about family centered treatment. and family centered approaches of which thisis really embedded in that context and the importance of that and you mentioned addictionas a family disease and for too long our addiction treatment, didn't offer enough family services.we have an opportunity, as parents enter treatment or as we have access to parents whether it'sin early treatment or whether it's in some other settings as you have spoken about, thatwe have an opportunity to engage those parents,

those care givers...in a way to look at theirparenting capacity. to engage them to strengthen their relationshipwith their children, to strengthen their parent capacity, we've accessed the parents...throughtreatment settings and almost an obligation responsibility to provide this service thatdeals directly with their ability to parent. we all have challenges in parenting and asyou've talked about it can be reinforcing to their recovery and it can also be a challengeto recovery, it can also be a trigger if we don't address a parent's confidence, a parent'sfeelings towards their own parenting capacity. and reinforce their ability to do it and givethem the skills set to do it. it's very compatible with treatment and recovery and as i justsaid, it's almost obligatory for us as we

provide treatment to parents, to be able toprovide this type of intervention, a parent child intervention.a strengthening the parenting capacity, because we become parents doesn't mean we know howto parent and because we may get to recovery doesn't necessarily mean we know how to parentand having skills and strategies that deal directly with our capacity to parent.and it builds our relationships with children, is now is a critical component of both individualparent recovery as well as family wellbeing. we appreciate your insights, sharing yourexperiences and your knowledge with us today. i want to thank you elaine for joining usas well today, i want to thank marianna and jonathan and children and family futures homeoffice for all of their preparation work in

putting this together.and i want to thank all of you participants and all 49 of you who have been with us forthis session for your time today. please feel free to access us through the national center,if we can provide more information and you see the contact information for institutefor health and recovery. between us we'll be glad to assist you withyour implementation challenges or other questions you might have that maybe triggered by today'swebinar. with that we hope you have a great rest of the week and enjoy the rest of thesummer, before schools starts and vacations are over.thank you and have a great day.

substance abuse treatment

substance abuse treatment

- hello and welcome to thistraining video on preventing and treating suicidal behavioramong clients with substance use disorders. my name is kirk penberthy,and i'll be moderating today's discussion. joining me today are our3 distinguished panelists. dr. mary schohn, who'sdirector of the va visn 2 behavioral health care line;ms. tamekia slaughter, who's a social worker at the buffalova medical center and goes by

nikki; dr. matthew barry,who's a psychiatrist at the canandaigua va medicalcenter, whose experience includes treating frontlinetroops in afghanistan. mary, can substance abusetreatment providers play an important role in suicideprevention in the va? - yes,they certainly can. clients with substance abusedisorders are at elevated risk for suicide,particularly those with co-occurring conditions.

therefore, it is essentialthat substance abuse treatment providers be prepared torecognize and respond to suicidal thoughtsand behaviors. it is also essential thatprogram administrators provide the needed support andguidance in this effort. - mary, what are yourecommending that va substance abuse treatment providersdo to manage suicide risk? - the procedure we'rerecommending is spelled out in the treatment improvementprotocol, or tip, provided by

the center for substanceabuse treatment at samhsa. this tip, number 50, is called"addressing suicidal thoughts and behaviors insubstance abuse treatment." - i see. what's in the tip? - tip 50 explains to substanceabuse treatment providers and their supervisors how todeal with suicidal clients. next, it shows them what to dothrough detailed case examples called vignettes. finally, it providesinformation about how

a program administrator couldimplement tip 50 in a given treatment program. - mary,what are the steps in managing suicide risk? - these steps are spelledout in tip 50 using the acronym gate: g-a-t-e. gather information, accesssupervision, take action, extend the action. the first step, gatherinformation, refers to

obtaining the informationthat will be needed to develop a plan of action. - nikki,i imagine it can be tricky to gather informationfrom a suicidal veteran with a substanceabuse problem. how do you go about that? - tip recommends thatcounselors be direct and clear, remain empathetic and supportive, and use open

body language. also, although a counselor may feel anxious about the topic of suicide, it is important not to allow anxiety to prevent one from gathering information or lead one into the trap of becoming a "suicide interrogator."

- what do you mean by not letting a counselor's anxiety prevent them fromgathering information? - anxiety about suicide cancause a counselor to avoid the issue altogether or seek falsereassurances from a client. such avoidance cantake many forms. for example, a question suchas, "you're not suicidal, are you?" is worded in a waythat conveys to the client that suicide is not a topicthat the counselor wants

to discuss. - what do you mean,"avoid being the suicide interrogator"? - anxiety about suicidecan also cause a counselor to grill a clientabout suicidality by asking rapid-fire close-endedquestions, a pattern that is referred to in thetip as becoming the suicide interrogator. substance abuse counselors areencouraged to relax as much as

possible, to take their time,to ask open-ended questions, and to allow the client thespace to explain their story in their own words. in general, counselors shouldapply their best therapeutic skills with suicidal clientsjust as they would any sensitive topic. - matt,what questions should you ask a client when you'regathering information? - that's a goodquestion, kirk.

the most critical thing toask about is suicidality itself--that is,to ask about suicidal thoughts and suicidal behaviorand to do so directly. sometimes the topic comes upspontaneously, but more often the counselor needs tointroduce the topic, and don't be afraid to do so. by and large, clients willexpect and/or be relieved if the subject is brought up. and we'd recommend that the

counselors open the topic with a brief statement such as "now i'm going to ask you some questions about suicide" or "i "have some questions to ask you "about suicidal thoughts and behavior." then you should ask screeningquestions about suicidal thoughts and suicideattempts to see if it's

an active issue. some examples of suchquestions can be found on pages 15 to 17 ofthe tip 50 manual. - once you've determinedthat suicide is an issue, what then? - you want to learn moreabout it in the way you ask about any therapeutic issue. so taking, for example,alcohol craving. in that case, a counselormight invite a client to

explain their cravings withan opening statement such as, "tell me about your cravings." and this could be followed upas needed with more specific questions such as, whatbrings the cravings on? how bad do they get? what makes them better? and how much control do youfeel you have when you're experiencing them? so the skill setis already there.

it's just applying the sameapproach to a different topic, and that topicbeing suicidality. so for example, one can startwith an invitation to explain, such as "tell me about yoursuicidal thoughts," and that can be followed up by morespecific questions as needed, such as, what brings thesuicidal thoughts on? how bad can they get? and how much control doyou feel you have when you experience them?

- and can examples like thisalso be found in tip 50? - yeah, they sure can. questions like these arelisted on pages 17 to 18 of the tip 50 manual. - you've covered askingabout suicidal thoughts. how about suicidal behavior? what types of follow-upquestions would you ask? - well, the tip 50 hasnumerous follow-up questions for suicide attempts,and these can be found on page

18 of the tip 50 manual. you'd want to askopen-ended questions about an attempt such as,"please tell me what happened" and then as needed, youcan follow it up with more specific questions, such aswhat method did you use to attempt suicide? another good question is, what happened as a result? so for example, did you

receive any treatment or have to go to the hospital? you would also want to learn if there was any other attempts or if there have been others in the past. - mary,is that it, then? to gather informationabout suicidal thoughts and behavior?

- it is also importantto gather information about warning signs,risk factors, and protective factors. - what's a warning sign? - warning signs areindications of acute risk. tip 50 provides a list ofwarning signs that were identified by apanel of experts. warning signs may bedirect or indirect. direct warning signs aregiven the highest priority

because they are theclearest signals of danger. these consist of suicidal communication, where a client expresses or alludes to thoughts or plans for suicide; seeking access to a method-- for example, acquiring a stash of pills or seeking out a gun or a means for hanging;

and making preparations for suicide--for example, rehearsing a suicidal act, saying good-bye to loved ones,or getting affairs in order. - what aboutindirect warning signs? - a panel of experts also cameup with a list of 10 indirect warning signs that spellout the acronym ispathwarm. although indirect warning signs may indicate acute

suicide risk, this is not always the case. for example. many substance abuse clients show anger, recklessness, or anxiety, but this does not necessarily mean that they are suicidal. therefore it is important

to consider these indirect warning signs in the context of other indicators of risk. - when do warning signs tend to occur? - they often occur followingacute stressful events--for example, following arelapse or the breakup of a partner relationship. they're also more likelyto occur when a client is

intoxicated or high. a rule of thumb is thatfollowing a stressful life event, a counselor wantsto look for warning signs. - along with warning signs,you also mentioned that risk factors are importantto consider. what do you mean by riskfactor, and how are they different from warning signs? - warning signs indicate acuterisk, whereas risk factors are indicators of morelong-term risk.

risk factors are helpful foridentifying which clients are vulnerable to become suicidalduring the course of treatment and which clients may requireadditional treatment services in order to lowertheir overall risk. risk factors may also changeover the course of time. for example, clients maybecome more depressed, and such changes are also veryimportant to pay attention to. here is a list of risk factors: personal or family

history; severe substance abuse; co-occurring mental disorder; childhood sexual abuse; stress; access to firearm; aggression, impulsivity, anger, or anxiety; chronic medical problems; perception of not belonging; and perception

of being a burden. suicidal clientstypically show more than one risk factor. - how about protectivefactors? - protective factors serveto lower risk for suicidal behavior. unfortunately, there hasnot been much research of protective factors,but here is a list of factors that appear to lowerrisk for suicide.

protective factors include having reasons for living, staying clean and sober, religious attendance or spiritual beliefs against suicide, presence of a child in the home or child-rearing responsibilities, an intact marriage, a trusting

therapeutic relationship, social support, employment, and a generally hopeful outlook. - so if a client has protective factors, then are they safe? - no. it isn't that simple. although protective factorscan help, they are not 100%

protective, and they can beoverwhelmed by warning signs and risk factors. it is a mistake to put toomuch stock in a protective factor when there areclear signs of danger. overall, it is essentialto consider all of the information pertainingto warning signs, risk factors, and protectivefactors rather than to grab on to any one pieceof information. one needs to considerthe whole picture.

- thank you for walking usthrough "gather information." matt, i understand that youhave a clip to show us that demonstrates this step. - that's right, kirk. this is a vignette aboutantonio rodriguez, who is a 25-year-old oif veteran,and he completed his military service about two years prior,and since that time, he's had a difficult adjustment. he's currently in anoutpatient substance abuse

treatment at a va clinic forthe treatment of alcoholism and cannabis dependence. precipitating his treatment wasan arrest for driving while intoxicated and marijuanapossession, and that led to misdemeanor chargesand ultimately to a court diversion program. conditions of the courtdiversion program included that he work with a court casemanager and complete a course of substance abuse treatment.

so he'd been doing well inhis treatment, with good attendance and continuoussobriety, but he'd been absent for about a week and didnot return his counselor's phone calls. he did show up to hisregularly scheduled group therapy appointment, and thecounselor, whose name is jill, asked to speak withhim after group. - antonio, it was good tosee you in group again today. you know, i've been concernedbecause you've been absent

lately and i haven'theard from you. - i've been busy. - yeah? what's been going on? - just crazy busy. - would you like to fill mein a little more on that? - if you must know... my girlfriend kicked me out. - you mean louisa? - yeah.

- oh,i'm sorry to hear that. where are you staying now? - at eva's--my sister's. louisa won't return my calls. i think she's donewith me this time. - that must bereally hard for you. you've often talked abouthow important she is to you. - she's everything. - would you mind tellingme what brought this on?

- stuff happened, you know? - antonio, i can tell thatthis is a sensitive subject, but perhaps it might helpin some small way to talk about it. - louisa kicked me out becausei got drunk and stayed out all night. - i see. so you're not onlydealing with the stress with louisa but also thestress of a relapse. - yeah. it was stupid.

i, uh... i ran into this guy thati used to hang with, and the next thing i know,we're at this bar, and we're throwing them down, andi was out all night. i don't even rememberhow i got home. - were you able to stopdrinking after that? - i wish. - you just takeyour time, ok? - when i got home, louisawas screaming at me.

i remember that. she threatened to call thecops if i didn't leave. she barely gave me sometime to grab my stuff. i went to my sister's, andshe wasn't thrilled to see me. she wasn't thrilled to seethat i had been drinking all night, so she leanedinto me pretty hard. well, i was in no mood to sitaround for that, so i grabbed a bottle of liquor from herliquor cabinet and went to the park and got drunkall over again.

uh... as i was sitting there... as i was sitting there,i was running the argument with louisa over in my mind. she loves me, you know? god, i let her down. i let her down again, and ijust couldn't stop thinking about what i had done toher--louisa, even what i did to eva.

and at that moment, it just... seemed like the best way tofix everything was to get rid of the person causingthe problems, get rid of everyone'spain and anger... get rid of me. - you were in a lot ofemotional pain sitting there at that park. just take your time, antonio. i can see that this isvery difficult for you to

talk about. my gun was at mysister's, but... if i'd had it with me, i'dbe somewhere else right now. i had some evil thoughts justsitting there, and no matter how much booze i drank, ijust couldn't stop thinking about what i had done. and finally a cop came by andtold me the park was closed and to go home. - wow. that was a prettyintense couple of days.

hey, look, i'm glad to seeyou've made it through in one piece. how you been doing since then? - [sigh] well, no drinking,if that's what you mean. uh, until coming to grouptoday, i haven't even left my sister's. i didn't trust myself togo anywhere, and i had nowhere to go.

it felt good to be back ingroup today, although i didn't say nothing. - well,i was glad you're back, and from the looks onthe other member's faces, it was pretty clear thatthey were happy to see you, too. antonio, you had some bouts ofsuicide while you were sitting at the park. i was wondering if i couldask you a few more questions

about that. - are you gonna lock me up? - while it is true that someclients have to go to the hospital for an emergencyevaluation, there are often other safe alternatives. - yeah? like what? - well,for example, any plan we make today, we'll make together. i want to let you know thati'm gonna touch base with my

supervisor before we breaktoday, just to make sure i'm not missing anythingimportant. but before we make any plans,it would be helpful to learn a bit more about how you'vebeen doing since that day - your supervisor,too? that's great. uh...i haven't thought aboutsuicide since that day. i haven't drank. i might have donesomething crazy that day, but i'm ok now.

- well,i'm glad that you've been able to stay sober since that day,and i'm glad that you're feeling better. looking back on what happened,how do you feel about it now? - well,killing myself would be like killing my mom. i'm her only son. my father's dead, and she'dnever get over it, and i'd bring shameon her, too.

to her,suicide is a sin, and i just-- i couldn't do that to her. my sister would also gocrazy if i killed myself. - you really care for yourmom and your sister, and you realize how much suicide wouldhurt them, and that helps you to focus how to go onliving despite the problems with louisa? - yeah. exactly. - i'd like to ask you a fewmore questions about this.

would that be ok? - you're gonna do it anyway,so get on with it. - thanks for bearingwith me, antonio. i really appreciate it. i realize that these arevery difficult questions. at this point, do you havea plan for suicide? - no,nothing like that. i haven't thought about itsince that day in the park. - how do you account forfeeling differently now than

you did that day? - i'm only 25, and i hope tohave a lot of years of life left, and i just--i couldn't--i couldn't do that to my mom. like i said, i don't wantto go out that way. - yeah. see? now, you've got a lot ofgood reasons to go on living. at the park, you hadsome suicidal thoughts, but fortunately, itnever went any further. have you ever hadthoughts like that before?

- once in a while, when i washammered, i had some thoughts, but nothing like thatday in the park. that was the worst by far. - have you ever actuallytried to commit suicide? - no, never have. when i was in iraq, this guyin our unit killed himself. just walked off one day andput a bullet in his head. there were a bunch of rumorsabout why he did it, but no one knows what the truth is.

i barely knew him. anyways, no, i've nevertried to kill myself. - i'm sorry to hear aboutthe guy in your unit. has anyone else you knowever tried to commit suicide? - no,just that guy. - ok. now, youmentioned a gun. it's a glock. it's in my bag at my sister's. so what?

- well,i mention it because i'm concerned for your safety andyou thought of using it while you were drunk at the park. - i'm not thinkingabout it now, am i? - understood. it's good toknow those thoughts have not come back. is that your only gun? - yes. yeah. - ok. so, what areyour plans now?

just taking it oneday at a time. i hope to get my sobrietyback, maybe one day convince louisa to take me back. right now she'd probablycall the cops if i showed up. but she stuck with me throughmy last two deployments. and we were planning ongetting married and having kids, and my momand sister love her. right now i'm just gonna stayat my sister's and try to get myself together.

- how is the situationat your sister's? for example, is itjust the two of you? - no. she's there with herhusband and daughter, my niece. and my brother-in-law is cool. he's ex-military, sowe get along good. - do you feel it's a safeplace to stay clean and sober? - well,there's no alcohol in the house. my sister saw to that.

since i took that bottle,she got rid of all of it. and my brother-in-law neverhad a problem handling it like i did,so as long as i'm there, she'd kill him if hebrought liquor to the house. they don't do drugs,don't even smoke. actually, that's one thing ihaven't done since seeing you is smoke marijuana, so atleast that's something, right? - agreed. that is a positive. it seems as though you have apretty good situation at your

sister's for now. - have you ever had treatmentfor a mental disorder--for example, depression or ptsd? - no. i saw someone at va foran evaluation, but he said i don't need any medicationsor anything like that. i just need to stop drinkingand smoking marijuana. - well, thank youfor answering my questions, antonio. at this point, i'm gonnatake a few minutes and speak

with my supervisor about yoursituation, and then i'll come back and we'll make a plan. it'll just be a few minutes,so please be patient, ok? - who's this supervisoryou're talking to? - her name is gloria johnson. i believe you met her. she covered my group acouple of times when i was on vacation.

- yeah. i remember her. - good to know the twoof you have met. ok, i'll be back to talkwith you in a few minutes. i appreciate your patience. i'm gonna have you wait in theprivate waiting room while i speak with ms.johnson, ok? - matt, that's avery moving scene. antonio is obviously havinga difficult time. - that's right, kirk.i think we can all feel for him.

antonio is clearly in alot of emotional pain. he became tearful inthe session and showed genuine sadness. from my experience, it is alsoimportant to note that many veterans in antonio'ssituation would not necessarily show tearsor be overtly sad. instead, a veteran may presentas angry or even appear stoic but still could be every bitas much a risk as antonio is. overall, suicidal clientshave many different ways

of expressing theiremotional difficulties. - i suppose that the centrallesson is that suicidal veterans are a diverse groupand they can present in many different ways. - that's well-said, kirk. i think that's exactly right. - the therapist seemed togather a lot of important information there. - agreed. i like theway she went about it.

antonio was obviouslyuncomfortable at first and hesitant to to discusshis suicidal thoughts, but the therapist made aneffort to make him more comfortable by asking open-ended questions as much as possible. she was also good atlistening and maintaining an open posture. i also really liked that sheinvited him to take his time and that she asked permissionat times before proceeding

on to the next question,and i think that giving clients a sense of controllike that can pay handsome dividends in terms of rapportand investment in the process. - along with having agood therapeutic style, the counselor also seemedto cover a lot of ground. - yes. i liked thequestions that she asked. she gathered importantinformation about suicidal thoughts, how they came about,how serious they were, and other factors related torisk, including the breakup

with his girlfriend,and his firearm. she also asked about mentalhealth treatment history, prior suicidal behavior,and any suicidal thoughts or plans since that day in thepark, all of which are very important to consider. she also clarified that thesuicidal thoughts occurred while he was intoxicated andthat they have not returned since, although there isalways a possibility that antonio is minimizingthe situation.

the counselor accomplished allthis efficiently, and indeed, the clip we just saw was onlyabout 14 minutes, yet she was able to gatheressential information in that space of time. - ok. nikki, now that thecounselor has gathered information, what's next? - the next step isaccess supervision. tip 50 describes twobroad types of supervision a clinician could access.

one is immediate supervision,and two is regular supervision. - what do you mean byimmediate supervision? - immediate supervision isrequired when the counselor has information to suggestthat there is current risk of suicidal behavior. earlier, mary reviewed directwarning signs that include suicidal communication,seeking a method, and making preparations for suicide.

the presence of any of these direct warning signs indicates the need to obtain immediate supervision. immediate supervision should also be obtained in any instance where the counselor suspects that there is current risk, whether or not there is

a direct risk factor such as you see on your screen. for example, in antonio's case, immediate supervision is required because suicidal thoughts occurred recently. these thoughts includedshooting himself--a deadly method of suicide. he has accessto a gun, and he has

relapsed recently. therefore, even though antoniois seeking to reassure his counselor that the crisishas passed, nonetheless the counselor recognizes thatshe should speak with her supervisor immediately. - i imagine that regularsupervision involves more routine situations. - that's right. regularsupervision refers to bringing up an issue during your weeklymeetings with your supervisor

or during your regularlyscheduled team meetings. some situations when regularsupervision would make the most sense would be when indirect warning signs are present but follow-up questions suggest no current risk, risk factors are present but follow-up questions suggest no current risk,

and when there's a history of suicidal thoughts or suicide attempts but follow-up questions suggest no current risk. of course, as we're learning, the tip 50 manual is comprehensive, and thisinformation can be found on page 19 of the manual.

- well,let's show the tape of the counselor accessingimmediate supervision. [knock on door] - gloria, i see thatyou're on the phone. i'm sorry to bother you,but there is a situation that i need to speakwith you about. - ok. i'll haveto call you back. something has just come up. - thanks for talking.

i did group today, and antoniorodriguez returned after being absent for a week. do you rememberantonio from group? - sure, i remember him. - ok, well, itouched base with him after group, and to make along story short, a week ago, he met an old friend, and theywent out and they got drunk. he came home. hisgirlfriend was furious. she kicked him out of thehouse, and he sat at a park

drinking and thoughtabout suicide. now, that was a week ago,and since then he has no thoughts of suicide, he'sbeen clean and sober, and is staying at his sister's house. - so where is he now? - he's in theprivate waiting area. i told the receptionist iwould come in here and talk to you and to call immediatelyif he starts to get upset or goes to leave.

- ok,good. you know, i'm glad that you came to me. tell me more aboutwhat's going on. - he sat at the park drinkingand he had the thought to shoot himselfwith his handgun. he told me that if he had hishandgun with him, he would have gone through with it. he thought drinking mightmake him feel better, but it provided no relief.

he seemed sad andwas tearful at times. he also described louisa--that's his girlfriend--as everything to him, and he'safraid he's blown it with her. - that's pretty serious. how is he doing sincethat day at the park? - as far as i can tell,a lot better. there have been nothoughts of suicide. he has no plan orintent for suicide. he's glad to be back inrecovery and hopes that louisa

might take himback eventually. - now,did you believe him, or did you think that he was justsaying those things to reassure you? - well,he was hesitant to talk at first. for example, he said that hewas afraid we'd lock him up if mentioned suicide. you know, but eventually heopened up, and i believe he

was being honest with me. - did he volunteer any reasonsnot to kill himself--for example, because it's againsthis spiritual or religious beliefs or because offamily relationships? - he said that he realizesnow that killing himself would devastate his mother andhis sister, particularly his mother. he also said that he's youngand he hopes to have many more years to live and he doesn'twant to go out that way.

- has he been suicidal before? - he says he has had thoughtsbefore but nothing as intense as his thoughts at the park. - has he ever triedto kill himself? - no. he's nevermade an attempt. when i asked him thatquestion, he mentioned that a member in his unit had shothimself, although he barely knew the man, and he saidthat's the only person he's known who's committed suicide.

- so,what's his mental health situation? - he did have an eval when hecame in for treatment, and as i recall, the doctor saidthat his problems were mostly substance-related andhe didn't need mental health treatment. - did he see any combatin iraq, any trauma? - i actually don'tknow about that. he doesn't really talkabout his deployments.

he mostly talks about hisrelationship, his legal situation, plus the factthat he's looking for a job. - so how do you feel abouthis living situation with his sister? - i feel goodabout it, you know. it's a sober and supportivearrangement, as best as i can tell. - now,you mentioned his gun. where does he keep it?

- it's in his bagat his sister's. - so do you know ifit's loaded or if he has ammunition with it? - you know, i'm sorry. i didn't ask that question,although i get the sense that it is loaded or he hasammunition based on what he said could have happenedhad he had the gun with him plus he saidthat's his only gun. - any other stressors?

- well,he is court-mandated for treatment,and i'm in touch with his case manager. he's also out of workand looking for a job. - anything else that'simportant to consider? - i have a good workingrelationship with him, and he's very popularwith the group. they were happy tosee him come back. - ok,let's quickly make

a plan so that you cango back and talk to him. he may start to feelanxious if you're away too much longer. - mary,the therapist didn't hesitate to come into her supervisor'soffice and ask to talk to her. - yes. this was really no timeto be tentatively knocking on the door or patientlywaiting for the supervisor to finish her call. she really needed to speakwith the supervisor then

and there and made thisclear in an assertive though respectful way. - the therapist seemedwell-prepared to describe the situation and answer thesupervisor's questions. - she certainly did. she spelled out theinformation efficiently and hit all of the majorpoints, including that antonio relapsed recently,the intensity of his suicidal thoughts at the park,the recent breakup with his

girlfriend and how much shemeans to him, his access to a firearm, and histearfulness in the session and overall sadness. she also mentioned protectivefactors, including his close relationship with his motherand sister and that the counselor and antonio have agood therapeutic relationship. - the supervisor seemedwell-organized with her questions as well. - absolutely. she is obviouslyexperienced with this issue

and guided the counselorthrough the key points in an efficient manner. i noticed that she also askedwhere antonio was to confirm that he is in a privatewaiting area and that the receptionist will call inimmediately if he starts to get anxious orbegins to leave. - mary,the therapist has gathered key information andaccessed supervision. now what?

- the next step, as spelledout in tip 50, is take action. there are many differentactions that can be taken to lower the risk for suicide. the general principle is thatthe action should make good sense given the level ofrisk in a situation. for example, clients at highacute suicidal risk require intensive, immediate action,whereas clients at lower risk would require lessintensive actions that are less immediate.

it is when there is a mismatchbetween the severity of risk and the level of actionthat there is a problem. for example, in antonio'scase, it would not be sufficient to simply welcomehim back to group without taking any additionalsteps to lower risk. mismatches can alsowork the other way. for example, sending a clientto the emergency department for an evaluation simplybecause of a prior history of suicide attempt is amismatch because it is

an over-response to thatsituation that wastes resources and can underminethe treatment relationship. - nikki, so, what are theactions that could be taken with a suicidal client? - here's a list of actionsthat are listed in tip 50. they include gatheringmore information, arranging emergency or outpatientevaluation, increasing frequency of contact,involving the suicide prevention coordinator,involving a care provider or

case manager, as well asrestricting access to means of suicide, involving familymembers, promoting attendance at self-help meetings,observing for signs of return to risk, and conductinga formal safety plan. a complete list of thesepotential actions can be found on pages 21 and 22 of tip 50. - nikki, that's alot of options. how does the counselorknow where to start? - yes, it can feeloverwhelming to a counselor,

but that's where gettingsupervision can be really critical to help thecounselor sort through the various options. this next clip will show youhow the counselor and supervisor developed a planof action together. - as far as we can tell,antonio has not been suicidal since the incident in the park. he's future-oriented, and histemporary living situation is sober and supportive.

he's also connectedto you and the group. i mean, overall,he appears to pose no acute danger to himself. i believe thatan outpatient-based plan is appropriate at this time. - that's how i see it, too. outpatient is sufficientright now. - you know, we alwayshave the option of having him gofor an emergency eval

if the situation worsens. you'll definitely needto do the standard va safety plan with him. you know him better than i. what else comes to mindthat might be helpful? - well, i'd feel a lot betterabout the situation if he got anothermental health eval. - well, sounds good. do you think he'llgo for another eval?

- well, he'll probably give mea bit of a hard time at first, but i think he'll eventuallyagree and follow through. he's fairly compliantwith treatment. - great. it will also be veryimportant to address the gun. - agreed. although dealingwith that makes me the most nervous. - it's a really tough issue. you know, makingthe environment safe is the last thing that comes upin the safety plan,

and by that time,perhaps, he'll be feeling pretty comfortable with the plan and then be more willingto address the gun. - so what do you suggest i do? - could he be persuadedto have a family member take the gun and store itin a safe and secure place for the time being? - well, he mentioned hissister's husband is ex-military and they have a fairlygood relationship,

and i assume he's experienceddealing with weapons and he might be willing tohelp us out with this situation. - best case scenario isto give his sister a call before he leaves today. that way there's no riskthat he'll change his mind before he gets home. now, in the call, you couldexplain the situation and then haveher and her husband take care of the gun.

- yes, i spoke withhis sister before and already obtaineda signed release. what if he's notwilling to do that? - well, he may surprise you and allow a callwith his sister. i mean, it's certainlyworth a try. if he won't go for that,there are other possibilities, including getting his commitment to give his weaponto his brother-in-law

when he gets home. if he insists onholding on to the gun, we also have a free gun lockthat we can provide him, although it would be much better if he'd be willingto part with the gun for now. - i'll try my best.so in a nutshell, the plan is to refer himfor another mental health eval, do the safety plan with him, and end the sessionby addressing the gun.

- i think you've got it. would you like for me to come in and, you know, work outthis plan with you? - i think he might bea little more comfortable if i work with him one on one, so let me see if i cando this on my own. - ok. that's fine.i'll be right hereand available to help if you get stuck. now, you want to bedirect and clear with him.

it's also very importantto be collaborative. if he doesn't feel likehe has a say in the plan, he's going to be less likelyto follow through. so along these lines,you might start out the session by asking what he would thinkwould be helpful before spelling outyour recommendations. - will do.i'll call you if i get stuck.thanks. - matt, what are your thoughts about the plan thatthey came up with?

- it's a real solid plan, kirk. they basically intendto take 3 actions. number one is to arrangea mental health evaluation. number w, develop a standardva safety plan with antonio. and number 3, address his accessto a firearm. so far his treatment is focusedon the substance abuse, but the possibility ofa mental health problem should be revisited. assuming he's willing,jill will set antonio up

for an appointment witha behavioral health professional to determine ifa mental health condition, such as depression or ptsd, requires treatment withmedications or therapy. another action is to dothe standard va safety plan that we'll discuss in moredetail a little later. they also wantto address the factthat antonio has a pistol, because firearms are the mostlethal method of suicide. - they concludedthat he doesn't need

an emergency evaluationat the hospital. what do you think of that? - their decision is sound,because as far as we know, no suicidal thoughtshave occurred since he wasintoxicated in the park. he's expressing reliefthat he did not kill himself and can providereasons for living. he and the therapist have asolid therapeutic relationship, and up until recently,he had done well in treatment.

and he is stayingwith his sister, who is a good, sober support, therefore, there areenough positive signs to indicate that an outpatientplan would be sufficient. - i noticed at the endof the clip the supervisor encouraged jillto be collaborative. - that's exactly right,and although it's easyfor clinicians to fall into the trapof dictating a plan, clients are much more likelyto follow through

if they have a real say indeveloping their specific plan. as well, clientscan come up with really good ideasto keep them safe, and these might be ideasthat appeal to themon a personal level or ones that the counselormight not even think of. along these lines,the supervisor encouraged jill to start off the meetingby getting antonio's ideas, which will help sent the tonefor collaboration. another thing that will help isthat the standard va safety plan

is done collaborativelywith the client, and that collaborationcannot be overemphasized. - here's the next clipthat shows the counselor going back to meet with antonio. let's see how it plays out. - thanks for waiting, antonio. - what'd you guys come up with?am i gonna get locked up? - ms. johnson and i do not think an emergency evaluationat the hospital is needed today.

- you guys would havehad to drag me there. - i think we're gonnahave to handle thisthe old-fashioned way-- by talking it through. although we don't thinkan emergency eval is necessary, you and i have to havea discussion to come up with a plan to dealwith the suicidal thoughts. - what plan? - any plan we'll make together. - i don't think i need a plan.

- antonio, i have to admitthat i see it differently. you've been through an awful lotin the past week, and you've been througha lot of pressure-- the stress with louisaand the relapse. plus, those thoughtsthat you had at the parkare really scary. it's very reassuring that thosethoughts have not come back. and you took a big stepin coming here today. i really admire you for beingso honest with me. all of that says a lot aboutyour commitment to recovery.

and all of thatmakes me really optimistic that we can make a good plan. i feel strongly thatwe should make a plan. it's not gonna be goodfor you to just pretend that this didn't happen. - yeah. whatever. - antonio...i feelreally strongly about this. - ok. ok.what do you want me to do? - ms. johnson and icame up with a few ideas,

but i'd like to knowif you have anything that you think might be helpful. - i got nothing. - you seem to have a thought.maybe have an idea there? - well, i...i don't liketalking in group. those guys are ok,but i don't want to talk about my personal stuff with them. i like--i like talkingto you more. - yeah. we have somereally good, honest,

one-on-one conversations. you really use these individualtherapy sessions very well. - yeah, it's justeasier talking to you. - ok, so, why don't weup our sessions to once a week? would that work for you? - i suppose. - ok. so i'll see you once aweek for our individual sessions for the next month, and then we'll seewhere you're at.

- what else do i have to do? - well, one thing i would like is to set you up for anothermental health eval. - i told you i was not crazy.i just got drunk one day and i'm ok now. - would you be willingto hear me out and i'll explainthe recommendation to you? - yeah, yeah, whatever.go for it. - thanks forhearing me out, antonio.

look, you've been throughan awful lot lately... and i believe you. i really do believe youwhen you tell me that you had suicidal thoughtsat the park and only at the park, and you haven'thad them since then. i also do notthink you're crazy. but you've been throughan awful lot. and when you go throughsomething like that,

seeing a mental healthprofessional might be helpful for you,you know? seeing a doctor or a therapist. might be worthgetting their opinion. at this point, it's justgonna be an evaluation. we don't know whatthe doctor's gonna say. maybe he'll recommend treatment.maybe not. maybe he'llrecommend medications.maybe not. you know?who knows?

it's just after whatyou've been through, it's a really good ideato get checked out. maybe talking to somebody else will proveto help you even more. - what choice do i have?the court says i have to do what you say. - well, the court does keepan eye on things, doesn't it? but to be perfectlyhonest with you, ms. johnson and iwere not thinking about that.

we're thinking aboutwhat would best suit somebody in a situationlike you, you know? what's best to help you, regardless ofthe legal situation. you were in a lot of pain thatday, a lot of emotional pain, and we don't everwant to see you back at the park like that. nobody should ever haveto suffer the way you did. - i suppose you'll tellthe doctor what happened.

- i'll give him a brief summary but i'll leave it for youto fill in the details. ok? - is that it, then? - well, there are a few otherthings i'd like to cover. for one thing,i would like to go through a step-by-step safety planwith you first. would that be all right? - whatever. - mary, what stands out to youas you watch the tape?

- she did a nice job. she opened the sessionby asking for antonio's input and picked up on his comfortwith the individual sessions by offering to increasethe frequency of these meetings. that got the meetingoff on the right foot. she was clear and firmthat she is recommending a mental health evaluation, and being clear and firmwith such a key recommendation is important.

but at the same time,she also took the time to explain the reason for it, and tried her bestto normalize it, which is really important,given antonio's fear of being considered crazy. as well, they touched onthe major issues that are weighing on his mind, including the breakupwith the girlfriend and his legal situation.

- the counselor also mentioneddoing a safety plan. - that's right, kirk.the va has a standardsafety plan that has to be donewith suicidal clients. here's the template for the plan that goes rightin the treatment record. we will not elaborateon the plan here, and we did notshow the counselor doing the safety planwith antonio, because an excellenttraining tape that showsthe va safety plan

is already available. viewers interested in learningmore about the safety plan should watch the safety plantraining video. - as i recall,there's also the issue of antonio's firearm. - that's correct. here's the clip of the therapistaddressing this issue. - antonio, the last partof the safety plan that i would liketo discuss with you

is keepingyour environment safe. you've been really fortunateto live with eva and her family, and i met eva when we firststarted doing recovery together, and i was really impressedwith how much she knew about recovery and addiction and howsupportive she is of you. - yeah. we're a close family. the only thing i'mreally concerned aboutin your environment is your gun. - what about my gun?

- look, it's certainlyyour right to have a gun. nobody's arguing that. however, given what happenedin the park and that you'reonly just beginning to reestablish your sobriety, i wonder if we couldwork out a way to lessen any riskassociated with the gun. - what are you saying? - well, i'd like to workon an arrangement with you

so that for the time being,someone else takes the gun and stores it safely. - that's not necessary. - let me try to explainwhere i'm coming from. would you at least bewilling to hear me out? - go for it. - ok. thanks for being willing. do you remember when you firststarted your program and we worked out a planwhere you would get rid of

all the liquor and marijuanain your place? - yeah.- it's basically the sameprinciple here. in early recovery,people tend to have moments when they're craving, or their judgmentisn't very good, and in those moments,having a substance nearbywithin easy reach could be the differencebetween relapsing and making it throughclean and sober. you know, this alsoapplies to suicide.

for example, if youwere to have a day when you got downand got bad news from louisa or you relapsed, well, then having a gun nearbycould pose a risk. you wouldn't needto give up the gun forever, but for now, it would bea good precaution. - ok. if it'll make you happy,i'll give it to a friendto hold on to. - actually, i was thinkingof your brother-in-law.

- yeah. sure.he's ex-military. he knows how to handle weapons. - good. would it be ok with youif we gave your sister a call and arranged foryour brother-in-law to get your gun today? - no. that's not ok. i told you i will--i will give my gun to my brother-in-lawwhen i get home. there's no reason to call eva.

- antonio, if you insistthat i not call your sister and you make the commitmentto give your gun to your brother-in-lawto hold on to when you get home, you know, i would certainlygo along with that. in fact, that would bea really important step and make the situationmuch safer than it is now. however, first i'd liketo briefly explore with you why you don't want to makethe call to your sister. would you be willing to at leasttalk about that some more?

- talk as much as you want.we're not calling her. - well, thanks for being willingto hear me out, antonio. you know, this is just a guess,but i'll ask anyway. is the reason you don'twant to call your sister because you don'twant to scare her? - you know, i know how mucheva cares about you and how invested she isin your recovery. i'm really guessingthat she would much prefer to know what's going on

rather than be left in the dark. you know, even if it didcause her to worry a little bit. we could do our bestto talk about it in a way that doesn't alarm her, but rather presents it assomething more of a precaution. you know, i could explain to herthat the thoughts of suicide entered your mindwhen you were drinking after the breakup with louisa,but they're gone now. and that temporarilymoving the gun

is just a precaution,just in case another crisis hits. you know, no doubt she's gonnahave some worries, but i can also let her knowof the positive thingsyou are doing and just reassure her once againthat this is just a precaution. - like i said, i will give myglock to my brother-in-law. you win. - i appreciate your willingness. you know, that's a reallyimportant commitment.

now, how about my suggestionto make the call to your sister? is that something you'll do? i realize i'm pushingthe idea a bit, but it's only becausei think it would be helpful. the good thing about a call is that it would beover and done with and there'd be no worriesabout changing your mindon the way home or a crisis coming upbefore you have a chance to give it toyour brother-in-law.

there's really nothing liketaking care of somethingright away and getting it over with. - all right.you can--you can call her. - you know, actually...i was thinking we could call heron the speakerphone. that way you could participatein the conversation. hmm? good.what's her number? - her cell is 703-462-8559. [buttons on telephone beeping]

[telephone ringing] [ringing] - hello?- hello, eva? - yes?- this is jill carlton-- antonio's substance abusecounselor. - yeah. hi.- hi. do you have just a coupleminutes to talk? - sure. sure.what's this about? - sis, uh, my counseloris worried about my gun

and wants victor to take itso i don't shoot myself. - what? what's going on?how did this come up? - see? i told youshe'd go crazy. - hi, eva.i can see howyou'd be worried. let me take a minute to explainthe situation to you. as you know, antonio relapsedand louisa broke up with him, and in reaction to that crisis,he confided in me he was thinking of suicide. now, the good news is thatthe suicidal thoughts

only happened on one daywhen he was drinking and there have beenno thoughts since then. also, in terms of the good news, antonio came backto treatment today and we had a good session, and we made some solid plansto get him back on track. overall, i feel goodabout our plan. however, dealing withantonio's gun could make the situation safer

in case there is a relapseor another crisis with louisa. so therefore, i'm recommendingthat as a precaution, someone take the gunand store itout of his whereabouts for the time being. i thought that your husband might be ableto help out with this because he has experiencehandling guns. - there--there area million things running through my headright now.

i'm--i'm a little scared.um...yes, yes. of course.victor--victor willtake care of the gun. antonio, where is it? - uh, it's in my bagin one of the side compartments. it's not loaded but there'ssome ammo in there, too. - ok. ok.uh, victor will be home soon and i'll have him take careof it when he gets home. - thanks, eva.that would be very helpful. um, could you please make surehe stores it in a safe place?

- ok. ok.he's got a safe wherehe keeps his guns and i'm sure he'll put this onein there with them. - eva, you seema little shook up, and that is very understandable. you know, i'm sorryto scare you like this. i don't have a crystal ball,and i certainly don't know if antonio would everuse the gun. but he's feeling much betterand he really wants to get back on trackwith his recovery.

and this is a positive sign. this step is justa safety precaution, although it's onethat makes good sense. - ok. ok.um, that's--that's good to hear. um, i know we talked once whenantonio started his treatment, but would it be possible for meto come talk to you in person? - well, what do youthink, antonio? can eva cometo our next session? - sure, sis, you can comeand you can meetmy counselor here.

i told her it was not necessary,but she pretty much insisted. - antonio, i'm glad she told me.i want to know what's going on. i mean, can you imaginewhat this would do to mamaif you killed yourself? not to mentionhow it would affect me. just--just do whatyour counselor tells you to do. um...all right.so when is this meeting? - antonio, could youboth make it thursday at 2:00 for a meeting? - i'm not working,so i don't exactly

have a lot of other plans. - how is that with you, eva? - yeah. yeah, that works great. - good. now, just in casethere's ever a problem, let me give youa couple of phone numbers. do you have a pen? - uh, yeah.got one.go ahead. - ok. my numberhere at the office is 462-3516.

and also, the nationalsuicide prevention hotline is 1-800-273-8255. you know, they take callsfrom concerned family members as well as people in a crisisanytime, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. - ok. all right.i got it. antonio, are youon your way home now? - yeah. i'll be therein a few minutes. - ok. good.any questionson our plans, eva,

or are you all set? - um, no, i thinki understand everything. um, victor isgoing to store the gun and i'll see you next thursdaywith antonio for the meeting, and if i have any otherquestions, i have your number. - that sounds great.looking forward to see you thursday at 2. - ok.thanks. bye. - bye.

- matt, antonio washesitant about the issue, but ultimatelywent along with a plan to remove the firearm. did the counselor do anythingto make it turn out so well? - she sure did.jill did a great job and had she jumped inon the firearm issue earlier, it may have gonemuch differently. but by the time she raised it, she had offered to increasetheir individualcounseling sessions,

picking up on antonio'scomforts with these meetings. she also took the timeto listen to antonio and did her bestto align with him, and they worked outa safety plan collaboratively. as a result, she was in a goodplace to introduce the topic. i admire the fact thatshe did not give up at the first sign of resistance or even the secondsign of resistance but really hung in thereand explained

where she was coming fromin a supportive yetplain-spoken manner. drawing a parallelbetween reducing accessto the firearm now and reducing accessto alcohol and drugswhen he first got sober seemed to help. this parallel probablyhelped antonio to frame this in a positive wayas part of his recovery, rather than more negativelyas a type of surrender or a loss of freedom. if taking a precautionwith a firearm can be reframed,

it often goes a long way inenlisting a client's agreement. - it was fortunate that antoniohad the option of turning to his sisterand her husband to help in this situation. - yes, kirk, it wasextremely helpful. in situations like these,it is often the best option to have a trustworthy personremove and secure the weapon if at all possible. in this case, antonio'sbrother-in-law's experienced

handling and storing firearms, and was a good choice. an added benefitof the call to his sister is that it mobilizedher involvement in treatmentas well. - what if antonio refusedto make the call to his sister? - the counselor was preparedto use an alternative strategy, including having antonio commit to give the weaponto his brother-in-law for safe storagewhen he got home.

if he had refused to do that, another alternativewould have been to provide antonioa gun safety lock along with giving instructionon how to use it. another option,was not mentioned, could be to getantonio's commitment to take the firearmto the nearest police station after confirming that the policewould be willing to store and secure the weapon.

it's also important to mentionthat firearm laws differ among statesand localities. therefore, it's incumbentupon the program administrators to have a firearmpolicy in place that maximizes clients' safety, that bears in mindstate and local laws. - nikki, what's the next step? - the next step isto extend the action. this is the step that ismost likely to be missed,

but it is every bit as importantas the other steps. "extend the action" refersto the follow-up actions that are done to ensurea client safety plan on an ongoing basis. - what types of extended actionsdo you recommend? - here's a list of waysof extending the action. continuing to check inwith your supervisor; confirming the patient has keptreferral appointments; following up with anyemergency providers;

coordinating withother providers; communicating with suicideprevention coordinator; monitoring suicidal thoughtsand behavior; involving family;confirming the clienthas a safety plan; assessing changes in accessto methods of suicide; following up in case of relapse; preparing the client for anydifficult situations; monitoring and updatinga treatment plan; and documenting everything.

a longer list of potentialextended actions can be found on page 23of the tip 50 manual. - now let's take a look ata clip of antonio's counselor extending the action in theirnext counseling session. - it's good to see youtoday, antonio, and it's nice to meet youin person, eva. - nice to meet you, too. - greetings, super counselor. - if only that were true. ha.so, how's it going?

- so far, so good.antonio's been going to his treatment appointmentsand has been staying sober. at least as best i can tell. - i'm on the straightand narrow now. you can piss test meif you like. you'll find no alcohol.no marijuana. - that's great to hear. although we're not gonna giveyou a urinalysis test today. we do them randomly over time,as per normal procedure.

- yeah. ok. - so, how you doing? - not too bad.haven't really hadany cravings. i stick pretty closeto my sister's place except when i makemy appointments. it keeps me out of trouble. - it's good to hear you haven'thad any cravings. if you do, and it will happen,don't hesitate to let me know, because it's a normal partof recovery

and it's really goodto talk about it. eva, you mentionedthat he's doing very well with his appointmentsand his sobriety. do you have any otherobservations or comments you'd like to add about that? - sometimes antonio mopes. i assume he'sthinking about louisa. and he has a lot of time on hishands right now, not working. he mostly stays home,and he plays with my daughter,

and she really loves him. my husband victor and hewent to a baseball game and victor treated,and antonio seemedto really appreciate that. and i warned victor,"no beer at the game," and i'm confidenthe went along with that. - antonio, what do you think? - i guess i do mope sometimes, but i don't really let myselfsink into it. i usually distract myselfwith watching tv

or playing a video game. playing with my nieceor whatever. - have any of the suicidalthoughts returned? - no. nothing. - do you have any commentsalong these lines? - well, i certainlycan't read his mind. i really don't know.but he hasn't said anything that would make me thinkhe's thinking about suicide. - that's good to hear.

often when peopleare having suicidal thoughts, they make comments that suggestthey're thinking of suicide, which is like a warning sign forfamily members to pick up on. it can be something obviousor not so obvious, from hopelessness to"life is not worth living," you know, anythingalong those lines. - well, i'll--i'llcertainly listen for things like that, but i haven't heardanything like that.

- jill, the education on suicideis really impressive, but it's really not necessary. - well, from your standpoint,it may not seem necessary, but it is helpful to me. it is.i really appreciate it. - i can see how antonio thinksi'm blowing thisout of proportion, but from my standpoint, it'sbetter to err on the safe side. may i ask about the gun? - victor took care of itand locked it in his safe.

um, antonio doesn'tknow the combination and i never remember itmyself, so, anyway, it's--its locked away. - ok. antonio, how do youfeel about that? - i'm ok.i'm not worried about the gun. i've got plenty of other thingsto worry about. - may i ask aboutyour mental health eval? - yeah. it went fine. saw him yesterday.answered some questions.

filled out some questionnaires. do you hear things?do you freak out whenyou hear loud noises? you know, just stuff like that. he said he wanted to see you. - ok. great.i'll look forwardto speaking with him. - do you think that antonioneeds mental health treatment? - i honestly don't know, but i am looking forwardto speaking to the doctor antonio saw about it.

- yes. i look forward to hearingwhat he has to say as well. - antonio, do you still haveyour written safety plan? - yeah. it's in my wallet. - ok, you let me knowif you lose it and i'll make you another copy. - and i still have the numbersthat you gave me as well. - ok, great.i'd like to switchgears right now and talk aboutsome other topics. - nikki, the counselor seemedprepared in that meeting

to follow up on all the thingsthat she'd discussed with antonio and his sisterin the previous session. - that's exactly right.she checked in with antonioand his sister about the key issues,including his sobriety, any return to suicidal thoughts, the mental health evaluation,and the gun. overall, the counselorfeels like the situation is stabilizedfor the time being and is prepared to move onto other topics

for the remainderof the session. she might go on to discusshow antonio can handle it when he has contactwith louisa again, for example, by phone or textmessage, which is inevitable. another good topic would bea review of the assistance that the va can provide himin his job search. she will also wantto discuss ways to strengthen his recovery, including the use of self-helpmeetings such as a.a. or n.a.

- mary, so, does thatpretty much wrap upthe case of antonio? - they've certainly dealtwith the immediate situation. in future sessions,the counselor will look for changes in warning signsand risk factors, keep her supervisor up to dateon what's happening, and remain in communicationwith antonio's other providers. jill also has established goodrapport with antonio's sister, who can support himas well as help watch for indications of risk.

all of theseare ways the counselor can extend the action. - mary, i'm guessing thatin this brief training, you were not able to coverall the material in tip 50. - yes, that's certainly true. we've only coveredthe highlights of tip 50, particularly the recommendedsteps of gate. gather information,access supervision, take action, extend the action.

there are also severalcase vignettes in the tip that provide additional examplesfor counselors and supervisors to draw from. we encourage va substance abuseclinicians and supervisors to order the tipso that they can learn more about gate as well as the additional informationin the tip. as well, having the tip handyprovides an ongoing resource when suicidal situations arise,

which may come up whenyou least expect them. although the tip is not written with the vaspecifically in mind, the guidelines in the tiptranslate very well to the va setting. - in the last few minutes,i wonder if each of you could make one additional pointabout suicide prevention with substance abuse clients, either something from tip 50that you've not mentioned yet

or a point that you believeis particularly relevant to suicide prevention effortswith veterans from your experience. - mm-hmm.i really want to emphasize the importance ofseeking supervision. talking about suicide isuncomfortable for most of us. supervision can helpby providing a forum to learn and practicenew clinical skills and to provide a place to geta second or third opinion

on how to handle a difficultclient situation. even staff with substantialexperience can benefit from opportunities to accessconsultation at times. - thank you, mary. nikki? - remember to make surethat your local suicideprevention coordinator is aware of any veteransthat are at high risk because the hospitalhas an alert system to flag these veterans' charts. also, work with your spcto ensure the veteran's safety

as they will monitor the veteran aside from their regularbehavioral health visits. also, remember to letyour veterans know about the nationalsuicide hotline, as it can be used asextra support for them, especially after hours, and it is specificallyfor veterans. that number is 1-800-273-talk. - thank you, nikki. matt.

- thanks, kirk.in addition to the resourcesand getting supervision, i'd really like to emphasizethe importance of collaboration between therapistsand their clients. this goes hand in handwith the recovery philosophy and it makes sense, particularlyin this challenging population, in which suicidality will arisefrom time to time. you'll get better outcomesand have a greater impact as a therapist if you involve the clientand work in collaboration

in all stages of treatment. - my thanks to dr. mary schohn,ms. nikki slaughter, and dr. matthew barry for their time and dedicationto this important work. also, thanks to the centerfor substance abuse treatmentat samhsa for providing tip 50,which serves as the basisfor this training. here's the informationon how to obtain tip 50. it can be downloadedas a pdf file as well as orderedas a paper manual.

the good news is thatthe manual is completely free and indeed,from samhsa's perspective as well as the va's, the morecounselors, supervisors, and administrators that ordertip 50, the better. hopefully, this overviewhas helped provide guidance on the complex topicof suicide prevention. remember--tip 50is your keystone guide to helping you help veteransat a crossroads.

that's all the timewe have for today. thanks for joining us.

substance abuse treatment facility locator

substance abuse treatment facility locator

>> hollyscoop: the hollyscoop hot seven>> host: lindsay lohan is the president of the hollywood bad girls club. but, is lohanto blame for her bad behavior? >> hollyscoop: number seven>> host: dr. david sack, ceo of promises rehab facility in malibu, who has not treated lindsay,weighs in. >> dr. david sack: relatively little is beingdone by hollywood as a whole about drug and alcohol use.>> host: dr. sack, however, believes drug use is a problem everywhere and not just inhollywood. >> dr. david sack: the use of hardcore drugsdoes not appear to be increasing in celebrities as opposed to the rest of the population.what's happening is that prescription narcotics

are being used much more broadly by everyone,celebrities and non-celebrities alike. and, as a result, there are many more people dyingof overdose. >> host: but it's only the celebs whose fallfrom grace is captured by the cameras.

substance abuse treatment centers near me

substance abuse treatment centers near me

drug addiction treatment centers are not allcreated equally, cost never equates to quality. too many facilities are forming and not providingmedical services and merely serving as holding centers until the patients released. manymedical experts even claim that patients get the best care in local clinics rather thanthe popular movie star rehab centers. we know the absolute best drug rehab treatmentcenters are the ones with a proven record so if you want to rid your self or a lovedone of substance abuse call us right now or just call to get your questions answered becauseasking is free. top drug addiction treatment centers, substanceabuse councelors,addiction facilities answer your most personal questions and locate theclinics right for you. the nearest rehabilitation

detox centers aren't automatically the besthelp solutions. use our completely free service to locate the best in or out patient rehabcare programs. getsubstancefree.com is a great resource along with these others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/substance_dependenceand a related youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9day0i38lu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=strn3pfpl_0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8f8coqvikk

Thursday, April 20, 2017

substance abuse resources

substance abuse resources

it's never too late to stop thesuffering and end the pain and addiction we offer unique programs withindividualized treatment plans we know that no two people are alike anddifferent people have different treatment needs so we customize your treatment programto ensure the highest success rate for your recovery we pride ourselves on having one of thefinest yet affordable recovery programs in the nation

we offer low-cost treatment withworld-class care and also accept many types have privateinsurance your privacy is assured and yourtreatment is always confidential we maintain the highest levels ofprofessional discretion and privacy are trained counselors are standing byand ready to help you 24 hours per day stop suffering and call the numberlisted now