Thanks to the Community Health Initiatives Grant, LTLC is integrating a recovery coaching program in 2017-2018.
What RECOVERY means:
Recovery is defined by SAMHSA as a “process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live self-directed lives, and strive to reach their full potential.”
Recovery coaching allows a path forward for individuals whose struggles with substances have caused them to lose economic and social supports and become homeless.
Individuals who are homeless suffer from the negative consequences of Substance Abuse at a far higher rate than the general public. Indeed, more than 50% of individuals that enter the LTLC state they have had prior history of drug or alcohol use that has negatively impacted their lives. Frequently, substance use is a contributing factor of an individual’s homelessness.
More recently, as the opioid epidemic has gripped the region and the country, many more individuals are struggling to cope with addiction and its negative social and economic consequences, and many find themselves at LTLC. LTLC maintains a year round abstinence based shelter program. Consequently, many individuals at LTLC enter the program when the benefits of rebuilding their lives in a sober environment outweigh the maladaptive incentives of continued substance use.
Frequently this decisional balance is fragile and fraught with many difficulties of early recovery. A program that focuses on an individual’s recovery in a nonjudgmental fashion and with a keen awareness of the pitfalls of early recovery in a shelter environment will help ensure better success for our clients. As a result of this program we expect to see; a reduction in harmful behaviors, greater success at improving basic outcomes including reducing length of shelter stay, reduction of relapse, better adherence to treatment planning and more successful completion of referrals to substance abuse services.