Training Description: The process of addiction recovery is difficult for adolescents and emerging adults (youth) and often involves multiple returns to use and subsequent rounds of treatment. Recovery capital is the total set of resources one can use to initiate and sustain recovery and is comprised of four major domains – human, financial, social, and community resources. Social recovery capital (e.g., sober friends, family, and peer groups) is vital to reducing substance use, especially for adolescents.
Social contexts shape social identity – who I am – which is generated from social group memberships – who we are. Social identity develops through interaction with social groups and changes over time as adolescents develop and engage with different social groups. As peer norms and values are strong influences on youth health and risk behaviors, one’s social identity is an important determinant of actual behaviors in social contexts. Recovery becomes more or less difficult depending on social influences and how these interact with other recovery capital resources.
This presentation will discuss the research on the importance recovery capital, specifically social recovery capital for youth recovery, discuss the process of social identity change during treatment and recovery, and describe how one novel approach, Social Identity Mapping (SIM) can be used to measure and reflect on one’s social influences with several case examples.
Objectives: Participants will be able to...
- Recognize recovery capital and barriers for youth recovery
- Describe the different ways that social influences can act as instigators of substance use and as barriers to youth recovery
- Explain how various social influences may provide recovery capital
- Describe the process of social identity mapping and the output it provides
- Discuss how social identity mapping could be used in their own work with youth
