Promising Practices:
Integrated Substance Treatment Approaches
for Residential Programming -
Youth and Adults

Challenge

Residential treatment facilities continue to struggle to meet the serious and multi-faceted needs of clients. While funding at local and state-wide levels has decreased or stagnated in recent years, the administrative, regulatory, and treatment expectations have increased remarkably. This scenario creates a climate in which the needs of the co-occurring client (client presenting both addiction and mental health needs) outweigh the resources available to effectively manage and treat their difficult conditions.

Program Description

This integrated program provides co-occurring services for residential treatment including in-house medical, medication management, mental health assessment, and mental health therapy services. These are internal and integrated with the addiction treatment service delivery model used by the residential program.

Through the provision of grant funding and local discretionary funding, the integrated model of co-occurring treatment services has been successful in identifying, assessing, and treating clients suffering from dual disorders (i.e. depression and addiction, anxiety disorders and addiction, etc.). In addition to medical services and medication management services, therapy services include the use of DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and theory-based treatment planning that incorporates client's strengths and learning styles.

Results

In a pilot program study implemented in 2000-2001, Great Lakes Recovery Centers (GLRC) had a prevalence rate of around 60% of clients who were suffering from co-occurring disorders. In efforts to better serve this population, GLRC worked in conjunction with local Community Mental Health programs to provide access to psychological and mental health therapy services.

In 2003, GLRC took this approach a step further by bringing psychological, mental health, and medical services internal to GLRC residential programs. Results have included increased proficiency in assessing client mental health issues, prompt medication management services for clients, and concurrent treatment for both clients' mental health and addiction needs. This has resulted in an increase in clients successfully completing treatment. There has also been a reduction in clientele access of costly, higher-end post-discharge treatment services (i.e. psychiatric hospitalizations, other residential programming, and post-treatment services).

Target

Youth and Adults receiving residential addiction treatment

Source

SAMSHA Co-Occurring Best Practice Initiative and Report on Co-Occurring Disorders

Organization

Great Lakes Recovery Centers
100 N. Front Street, Suite 302
Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 228-0505

Organization Description

The mission of Great Lakes Recovery Centers (GLRC) is to offer a recovery program targeting persons from Northern and Upper Michigan who experience substance abuse related issues. GLRC believes that chemical dependency on alcohol or other drugs is a disease that affects the individual, family members, and community. The treatment of this illness can best be addressed with an array of services provided by caring professionals involving the individual, family, and community. It is only through this comprehensive approach that long-term recovery is strengthened.

GLRC is a non-profit agency specializing in the prevention and treatment of substance abuse. GLRC offers residential treatment for youth and adults, specialized services for pregnant clients who need pre-natal and post-natal care, and outpatient services to families and individuals of all ages recovering from substance abuse. The agency also offers mental health services that provide a wide variety of empirically based psychological assessment, treatment, and consulting.

GLRC is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). Various programs are licensed by and/or contract with:

Michigan Department of Community Health/Bureau of Substance Abuse Services for residential treatment, outpatient services, screening, assessment, and prevention
Michigan Family Independence Agency as a Child Caring Institution and Child Placing Agency
Eastern, Western, and Northern Substance Abuse Coordinating Agencies for Substance Abuse Services and four other lower coordinating agencies
Federal Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Probation Department, Michigan Department of Corrections, Office of Community Corrections
State of Wisconsin

Copyright©2003 by the Great Lakes Center for Youth Development except where noted
Contact Judy Watson-Olson or Karen Thompson at (906)228-8919 with questions/comments
Some information on this site is produced by other sources, see bibliography for source
This page was last updated on Thursday, November 20th, 2008