![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/ner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/01\/sam-headshot-224x300.jpg\")
What\u2019s a Recovery High School?<\/em><\/p>\nRecovery is hard. Even harder is maintaining sobriety as a teenager when you are expected to return to the same school and friends you had while you were addicted.<\/p>\n
Recovery High Schools can help. These schools can be a safe haven for teens. \u00a0Recovering students can resume their high school education in a setting where they know they will not be offered drugs. \u201cSober schools\u201d, as they are sometimes called, also provide additional mental health support such as \u00a0counseling, as well as access to peer recovery groups as part of the students\u2019 school day.<\/p>\n
Recovery high schools have been around since the late 1970s. Currently, over 40 recovery high schools exist across the United States. Based on a 2017 research study by Vanderbilt University professor Andy Fitch and others, students enrolled in recovery schools are significantly more successful staying away from drugs than those not enrolled in these schools. More recovery schools are likely to open as our nation addresses the current opioid addiction health crisis with a variety of solutions. \u201cThere has been a gap in adolescent treatment for many, many years\u201d, says Fitch who is also co-founder of the Association of Recovery Schools<\/a>. \u201cThe schools are one of the programs that fill in that gap.\u201d New sober schools are planned in New York, Delaware and Oregon. Eighty-five per cent of the recovery schools are public or operate with some source of public funding. Opening a recovery school can be complicated because the schools must recruit their students, create and implement policies specific to the needs of their students and they must fund the additional services recovering students need.<\/p>\n As an NER Education and Outreach Coordinator I am grateful for a recent opportunity to work with the Rockdale Recovery\u00a0 High School in Worcester, MA. Rockdale principal Mary Ellen McGorry and clinician Alyssa Richard participated in a unique webinar made possible through grants from the American Academy of Pediatrics, Community Access to Child Health Grant<\/em>, and the American\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Psychiatric Association Helping Hands Grant<\/em> obtained by UMass pediatrician Dr. Magret Chang. These grants enabled Dr. Chang to oversee the creation of series of candid and powerful, videotaped interviews with a recovery high school student named Sam, Sam\u2019s father and her grandmother. The interviews will help Dr. Chang\u2019s medical students understand addiction a little better, as they provide a glimpse into a family deeply affected by substance use disorder. Videographer, Michael Laramee from Vivineer, LLC, worked with me, Dr. Chang, and the Rockdale team to craft the interviews he previously videotaped into an informative webinar that the NER presented in December, Substance Use Disorder: It\u2019s a Family Disease<\/em>. The family stories courageously shared by Sam and her family provide some unique insights into substance use disorder. You can access the webinar recording, presentation slides and comprehensive substance use disorder resource list at the following link: https:\/\/escholarship.umassmed.edu\/ner\/81<\/a><\/p>\n Information about Recovery High Schools was obtained from TIME, “Inside the Specialized ‘Recovery’ High Schools Designed Just for Teens with Addiction”, by Anna Gorman\/Kaiser Health News, January 23, 2019 https:\/\/time.com\/5509829\/sober-high-school-addiction\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What\u2019s a Recovery High School? Recovery is hard. Even harder is maintaining sobriety as a teenager when you are expected to return to the same school and friends you had while you were addicted. Recovery High Schools can help. These schools can be a safe haven for teens. \u00a0Recovering students can resume their high… Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[242,10,14,18],"tags":[467,362,339,465,463,338,466,464,468],"class_list":["post-15558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-nlm_resources","category-public-health-review","category-trainings","tag-high-school-students-and-addiction","tag-high-school-students-with-substance-use-disorder","tag-recovery","tag-recovery-schools","tag-rockdale-recovery-high-school","tag-substance-use-disorder","tag-sud","tag-teens-and-addiction","tag-worcester-recovery-high-school"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15558"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15568,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15558\/revisions\/15568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_7\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/ner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2020\/01\/rockdale-logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
NER Works with Rockdale Recovery High School<\/em><\/p>\n