Mindfulness based stress reduction training intervention for Recovery Coaches

Background: Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC), a statewide organization, provides health and human services to underserved, low income populations who need treatment for alcohol/drug and mental health problems and advocates through use of Recovery Coaches for this population in courts, jails, prisons, and child welfare systems.

Methods: We have developed an eight week manualized training program on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction practices, adapted for Recovery Coaches to reduce compassion fatigue and enhance the working alliance with substance abusing parents. The study includes self-reported measures of mindfulness, assessment of the working alliance through coach and client surveys, measures of compassion fatigue, and burnout, at baseline, post-intervention, and three month follow up.

Results: To date the Recovery Coach program have serviced over 4,000 substance abusing parents with trying to regain custody with over 5,000 children. The children associated with this program were 21% more likely to be reunited with their parents and was half as likely to be involved later with the juvenile justice system. The parents who were involved in the program showed higher rates of treatment participation and completion (Ryan and Huang, 2012). The results from the focus groups were used to inform the development of the manualized mindfulness stress reduction techniques for the Recovery Coaches and the preliminary analysis on the working alliance between coach/clients, as well as, client satisfaction summaries will be completed this summer.

Conclusions: This study contributes to the development of the Recovery Coach Model by examining intricacies of the client-worker engagement process that facilitates positive coach/client outcomes.