Dept. of Corrections Program

A peer-based recovery support program serves the purpose of assisting incarcerated people in addressing their substance misuse issues through group and individual activities that provide information and tools, helping inmates to become and remain focused on healthy recovery from substance use disorder. This goal is achieved  through the following means: 

 

Recovery Groups 

 

• Peer support facilitated by an RC within a small group setting: 

• It brings inmates together to discuss significant issues that impact their lives  and which their addiction makes more difficult to address; 

• Provides recovery tools that are effective both inside and outside a  correctional facility and does so in a way that each group member can  experience a sense of accomplishment upon completing a program; 

• Creates a community within the prison through which individuals who want to  work on their addiction issues can support each other’s recovery efforts; 

• For those incarcerated individuals not thinking about recovery at the present  moment, it provides an opportunity to reflect and, potentially, decide to investigate what recovery means and what it may look like, incentivizing  them to take future action; 

• Demonstrates how communal support networking is vital to maintaining recovery both on the inside and outside of correctional facilities. In some cases, the absence of solid family support may be replaced  by faith in the recovery group; 

 

Individual Coaching

 

Peer Recovery Coach and Inmate Interaction: 

 

• Provides direct individualized peer recovery support for individuals during  their period of incarceration; 

• Provides a safety valve for pressures that build up as a result of being  incarcerated, given limited contact with family, friends, and other support  mechanisms; 

• Allows individual solutions to be identified and addressed that may not be  appropriate or comfortable to bring up within a group setting; 

• Fine-tunes many of the skills and tools learned within group settings to suit  individualized needs;

• Allows individuals to formulate a personalized recovery plan that addresses immediate, short-term, and long-term recovery needs once they are released. Plans may then be tailored to align with their conditions of release; 

• Many, if not most, of the individuals served come from family backgrounds in which addiction and dysfunction played a major role in their own addiction problems. Individual Coaching provides an opportunity to build trust and form a healthy relationship with a person who has nothing personally to gain from an honest exchange of information. In this sense, individual coaching  can provide a compassionate surrogate that has been absent from the  individual's family and other social interactions; 

• Connects individuals with recovery resources that can be meaningfully utilized  upon release, such as a variety of support organizations (AA, NA), including  community recovery centers throughout the state;