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Charting the Landscape of Missouri’s Recovery Community Centers

Room Paradise Ballroom A

Speaker(s)

Bridget Coffey, MA, MSW & Lindsey Pawlowski, MSW
Panelists

Description

Recovery Community Centers (RCCs), or places where people in substance use treatment and recovery can gather to find a supportive community and access resources, have increasingly played a part in many people’s recovery journey. RCCs provide essential services to people across Missouri, providing services that range from harm reduction materials to assisting with job placement.
Missouri has recently expanded access to RCCs. The state has funded four RCCs since 2018, with four additional RCCs receiving state funding starting in 2022. Each RCC offers services individualized to its community, and while each serves people in recovery, the support received at each can look very different.
This session will begin with a 20-minute presentation about RCCs in Missouri, including an overview of what RCCs are, the types of services available at each, and a summary of RCC usage data. After the presentation, we will moderate a focus group discussion with five individuals who are involved with RCCs at different levels.

Objectives

1. Define Recovery Community Centers (RCCs) and the role they play in recovery from substance use.
2. Describe what the RCC landscape looks like in MO from the perspectives of both RCC staff and participants
3. Discuss the future for RCCs in MO
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Recovery Through Connection: Shifting Paradigms in the Treatment of Substance Use Disorder

Room Paradise Ballroom A

Speaker(s)

Nigel Darvell, MSW, LCSW, ACSW

Description

The medical model approach to treating addictions has been utilized since Substance Use Disorders were identified as Disease processes and therefore require medical approaches and interventions.
This program aims to offer an alternative to our traditional approaches to treating addictions and will cover many new approaches and well-known but less utilized interventions. There is a need to individualize treatment for each Substance Use Disorder and addictive behavior and not rely on just the traditional approaches.
This program does not aim to minimize or discount the benefits of traditional approaches but will offer a shift in paradigms as to how we see addictions and explore new approaches and models.
The value of connection and social recovery will be emphasized, and alternative approaches and methods will be featured. Many in recovery continue to feel disconnected and want more than traditional approaches have offered.
This program will equip the clinician treating Substance Use Disorders and addictive behaviors with new approaches and tools and techniques that will insure better outcomes and prognosis for long term recovery.

Objectives

  • Examine the traditional approaches utilized today in treatment
  • Discuss reasons as to why traditional approaches can only go so far in a person’s recovery
  • Explore the power of connection and vulnerability
  • Examine new approaches and models
  • Address barriers to recovery and connection
  • Provide strategies to work through shame “shields”
  • Provide a treatment plan and roadmap to customize with your client
  • Utilize a template to procide a proactive relapse model
  • Provide treatmetn plan that incorporates teaching worthiness and belonging
  • Develop more effective and realistic approaches to offer client
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Evaluating the Effects of Environmental and Therapeutic Interventions on Inpatient Aggression Contagion

Room Parasol I

Speaker(s)

Alexandria Choate, MA & Niels Beck, PhD

Description

The presentation will focus on discussing the historical context of aggression contagion within inpatient forensic settings. Research at the Fulton State Hospital has identified that aggressive incidents are often “contagious,” meaning incidents are not randomly spread across the year but clustered temporally. This presentation will examine the presence of aggression contagion within all programs at Fulton State Hospital. Additionally, the presentation will describe the clinical presentations associated with aggression contagion. Lastly, presenters will provide examples of aggression contagion and interventions utilized to reduce the impact of this phenomenon on aggression within inpatient units.

Objectives

  • Define aggression contagion within inpatient forensic settings.
  • Identify patterns of aggression contagion based on clinical presentation.
  • Identify interventions that target aggression contagion.
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Culturally – Attuned Behavioral Activation to Support Psychological Resilience

Room Paradise Ballroom A

Speaker(s):

Ann Steffen, PhD, ABPP

Description

Behavioral Activation is a psychological treatment approach that helps us connect with and routinely involve ourselves in personally rewarding activities. Many mental health problems can make it challenging to concentrate on, engage in, and appreciate positive experiences. This is sometimes called “reward dysregulation” by scientists and may involve parts of the brain that process emotions. First developed and still used as a very effective treatment strategy for depression, clinical research now shows that this approach can help with a range of mental health concerns such as PTSD, anxiety, chronic pain, eating disorders, distressed relationships, along with others.

Objectives

    • Describe the rationale for behavioral activation as a transdiagnostic change process
    • Explain the culturally – responsive features of behavioral activation.
    • Identify within-session strategies to improve effectiveness of BA.
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The Ethics of Competence

Room Paradise Ballroom B

Speaker(s):

Justin Bennett, MSW, LCSW

Description

Ethics are paramount in guiding professional practice. There is a broad understanding of how ethics guide practice with clients; however, that is not the sole focus of professional codes of ethics. The focus is often multi-pronged, and can be just as varied as our approaches with clients, in the workplace, and within systems. The focus of this presentation will be on the ethics of competence. How as professionals do we navigate being a practitioner, a peer, a supervisor, an employee, and the many other things that will be asked of us in our roles? Understanding how competence intersects with all of these roles will better prepare you to approach your work from a new perspective.

Objectives

    • Define the ethics for various professionals as they relate to competence
    • Describe how competence makes us more effective in our various roles
    • Discuss how our practice affects others
    • Identify the traits and skills that lend to competent practice
    • Utilize multiple techniques to improve professional competence
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Risk and Resiliency in Adverse Childhood Experiences: Implications for Prevention and Intervention

Room Paradise C

Speaker(s):

Tim Welch, PhD, LMFT

Description

This presentation will first provide a definition of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and discuss relevant research on the association between exposure to multiple ACEs and numerous negative physical, emotional and mental health outcomes in adulthood. The presentation will examine exposure to ACEs through the lens of the Family Stress and Resilience theoretical framework. This approach highlights the role and value of enhancing protective factors to promote resiliency in the context of exposure to ACEs. This presentation will describe modern approaches to addressing the impact of adverse childhood experiences and discuss prevention and intervention implications for clinical and mental health practitioners.

Objectives

    • Define adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
    • Describe the negative effects of exposure to ACEs in adolescence and adulthood
    • Identify relevant protective factors to the harmful effects of exposure to ACEs
    • Describe approaches for addressing the effects of ACEs
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Adolescent Social Media: Myths Managing Risks and Maximizing Benefits

Room Wingate 60-61

Speaker(s):

Tim Welch PhD, Joyce Chang PhD & Desiree Dixon BS

Description

This presentation will review and summarize relevant research on the effects of social media use on adolescent well-being and mental health. The presentation will contrast research findings on social media use with the portrayal of the effects of social media in popular press and media. The presentation will describe research that explores different factors such as motivation to use social media influences the effects of social media more than the amount of time spent on social media. The presentation will then discuss the potential beneficial effects of social media use for adolescence. Lastly, the presentation will provide research-based strategies and recommendations for parents and others working with adolescents for minimizing the harm of social media use, while maximizing potential benefits.

Objectives

    • Describe the association between adolescent social media use and adolescent well-being and mental health.
    • Name several factors that influence the association between adolescent social media use and adolescent well-being.
    • Identify and describe the positive and beneficial effects of social media use for adolescents.
    • Identify research-based strategies and recommendations for safe(r) social media use in adolescents.
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The Efficacy of the CRAFT Model of Therapy in a Group Setting

Room Wingate 60-61

Speaker(s):

Description

Dr. Robert J. Meyers and Jane Ellen Smith’s CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) has long-been known for its positive outcome measures when executed in individual and family settings as it pertains. We, at IMF Counseling in mid-Missouri, have been offering and facilitating the CRAFT approach in a group setting for the past three years with excellent results.
Mimicking a family system, the CRAFT approach is easily adaptable to a group therapy setting, providing not only education and behavioral strategies for loved ones, but real-time support to participants; this increases the quality of life for all involved.
This presentation will equip learners with tools, anecdotal examples, and a shortened mock group session so they can better facilitate the CRAFT model in their respective settings.

Objectives

    • Identify the three main goals of the CRAFT model
    • Practice the differences in executing CRAFT strategies in a group setting vs. individual therapy
    • Connect with other participants around the strengths and weaknesses of group therapy in general
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Assessment of Non-offending Partners in Child Sexual Abuse Cases for parenting and protective capacities

Room Wingate 60-61

Speaker(s):

Marie Clark, MA, LMFT, LSOE, LSOTP

Description

In child sexual abuse cases the Non-offending Partners are frequently omitted from the formal assessment process, although they play a major role in the safety and psychological well-being of the victims and their siblings. In general, they are referred for parenting classes, parenting capacity assessments, and/or counseling, without a formal assessment of their knowledge, role, and attitudes regarding the sexual abuse.

Objectives

    • Discuss the decision-making progress of the nonoffender.
    • Review the formal assessment process
    • Apply information to case planning and treatment referrals
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Compassion Fatigue

Room Wingate 62-63

Speaker(s):

Issac Sandidge, MA

Description

This session is intended for behavioral health workers who wish to learn more about how experiencing traumatic events, either directly or indirectly, as a first responder reacting to an emergency or crisis situation may impact their professional and personal well-being.

Objectives

    • Define and discuss the impact of trauma, vicarious trauma, and burnout on professional and personal wellbeing
    • Identify compassion fatigue and burnout warning signs
    • Describe individualized self-care and resiliency strategies to mitigate the damaging impacts of trauma and associated stress responses