Substance Use & Mental Health Recovery Supports
Many people experience mental health and substance use challenges, and much is known about how to support recovery. People can and do recover—and recovery is possible for everyone.
Along with prevention and treatment, equitable recovery-oriented services and supports are integral to an effective response. Recovery-oriented approaches offer coordinated services and supports that are person-centered and build on the strengths, cultures, and resources of individuals, families, and communities. We center racial equity as a strategy to address disparities and ensure that people in recovery who are most severely marginalized by racism can access recovery support services in the amount, duration, locality, and by the provider of their choice.
Our staff has led federal, state, regional, and local projects to develop and implement equitable recovery-oriented services and supports and has provided training, technical assistance, and consultation to support recovery. We have been centrally involved in several recovery-focused Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) initiatives.
Our team includes service providers, peers, trainers, researchers, and people who have experienced mental illness, substance use, trauma, homelessness, and incarceration. We partner with treatment and prevention experts to ensure coordinated responses that integrate recovery. Our work is grounded in our experience providing and participating in mental health and addiction services. People with lived experience are at the forefront of our work to ensure real-world expertise is embedded in all we do.
We Can Help You
- Develop and implement equitable recovery-oriented systems and supports
- Facilitate local and national conversations with stakeholders to promote dialogue, build consensus, and advance understanding of recovery
- Lead conversations, listening sessions, and structured interviews about racism with staff, board members, service providers, community leaders and those you serve
- Review, update, and operationalize policies and procedures to ensure equity
- Develop action steps to shift organizational culture and implement strategies for making equitable change
- Use shared decision making to activate people in their own care
- Develop strategies to hire, integrate, supervise, and retain peer workers
- Build capacity of peer workers via professional development and career ladders
- Integrate medication-assisted treatment/medication-assisted recovery with other services and supports
- Promote recovery housing and support residences and system stakeholders to build capacity
- Develop, implement, and assess a plan to address stigma
- Integrate behavioral health and primary care
- Identify, develop, enhance, and evaluate equitable criminal justice reform initiatives including re-entry and recovery supports and services
- Promote recovery-ready workplaces by training employers about the benefits of hiring people in recovery and best practices in outreach and hiring, human resource policies and practices, and supervision and management techniques to support employees in recovery
- Support people in recovery who are ready to re-enter the workforce by providing training in key employment skills and access to trained peer job coaches
- Strengthen the resiliency of children, youth, and their families
- Support parents in recovery
- Plan and implement youth recovery supports
Learn more about partnering with us.
"Relevant, taught with a sense of humor, and meaningful. It gives hope to those we work with today." –Participant in Harm Reduction course
Our Experts
Examples of Our Work
Supporting Informed Treatment & Recovery Decisions in Massachusetts
Together in Recovery is fostering an accessible, integrated treatment and recovery network in Massachusetts that champions evidence-based approaches, supports multiple pathways to recovery, and puts people in charge of their treatment choices. In 2019-2020, we partnered with RIZE Massachusetts to convene peer, clinical, policy, family, and community stakeholders and experts to deepen understanding of evidence-based approaches and person-centered strategies. Using a facilitated dialogue process, we engaged in one-on-one conversations and hosted Change Team meetings, regional meetings, and a statewide event. Through this exploration of diverse viewpoints and experiences, we developed and released a blueprint for action that embraces a unified vision and offers specific steps for implementation. We are now facilitating phase three of the project and are working with RIZE and the Together in Recovery Action Committee to achieve the identified goals and priorities for action. Read Together in Recovery: Facing the Opioid Overdose Crisis in Massachusetts—A Case Study and learn more about the initiative.
Evaluating Collegiate Recovery Services in Washington
C4 and partners at Washington State University (WSU) conducted an environmental scan to assess availability and quality of collegiate recovery support services in Washington State. We collected data from multiple sources including current literature, surveys, policy reviews, and stakeholder interviews. In the report, we make recommendations for individuals and organizations providing collegiate recovery supports. WSU also examined educational needs and priorities for young people in recovery and transitioning to collegiate settings. Read “Reshaping the Conversation: Collegiate Recovery Supports and Services in the State of Washington.” For more information, contact Patricia Maarhuis, PhD at WSU and Kathleen Ferreira, PhD at C4 and learn more about collegiate recovery from Washington State University.
Delivering Evidence-Based Mental Health Services
Through the New England Mental Health Technology Transfer Center, C4 Innovations staff are working with partners to strengthen capacity to deliver evidence-based mental health services. We are providing training, consultation, technical assistance, and knowledge dissemination activities to organizations and treatment practitioners on mental illness prevention, treatment, and recovery support. More about our substance use and mental health recovery support work.
Learn More
- Harm Reduction: Compassionate Interventions for Recovery: online course starts February 26, 2024
- My Recovery Journey: Steven Samra—video (4:35 minutes)
- Advancing Racial Equity in Recovery and Behavioral Health (PDF)
- Building a Comprehensive Continuum of Behavioral Health Supports for Youth and Young Adults (PDF)
- Strong and Informed: Supporting Shared Decision-Making in Children’s Mental Health—prepared by C4 staff with funding from SAMHSA's Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) project
- Supporting Parents in Recovery—prepared by C4 staff with funding from SAMHSA's Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) project
- Supporting Families and Caregivers of Adults with Serious Mental Illness—prepared by C4 staff with funding from SAMHSA's Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) project
- Increasing Access to Treatment and Recovery Supports for People with Disabilities resources: overview; disabilities affecting reasoning, memory or learning; mobility limitations; blindness or vision loss; deafness or hearing loss; and tips to increase accessibility—prepared by C4 staff with funding from SAMHSA's Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) project
- Talking About Substance Use and Addiction (PDF)
- Equity and Recovery
- Integrating and Supervising Peer Workers
- Medication-Assisted Treatment/Medication-Assisted Recovery
- Recovery Housing
- Stigma and Recovery
- Criminal Justice System Reform & Re-Entry Supports
- Recovery-Oriented Systems
- Opioid Overdose Prevention and Support
- Pregnancy and Recovery
- Substance Use Prevention and Early Intervention
More about our expertise and our training and technical assistance approaches and offerings.
