Recovery High Schools
Recovery High Schools
All Treatment had the pleasure of interviewing Helene Cross,
President and CEO of Fairbanks (in
association with LaVerna Lodge)
and Rachelle Gardner, Director of Adolescent Services at Fairbanks
and COO for Hope Academy about the current momentum and future
challenges of recovery schools in the United States.
AT: What is a recovery high
school?
Rachelle Gardner: It's a school that provides a safe and sober
environment, where young people can achieve academic success and
also success in maintaining sobriety and support. It's an
environment that fosters relationships and long-term sobriety, giving young people the
support in order to do that, and being able to achieve academic
success, which in a normal traditional school, they haven't been
able to achieve. This gives young people hope and a chance to go on
to secondary education, whether that is a community college or a
large university.
This gives young people hope and a chance
to go on to secondary education
AT: Who makes a good candidate for recovery high
school?
RG: A young person who is willing to address their addiction
issues, willing to receive support around staying sober and who
want to achieve academic success. The two key points are that they
want to be sober and they are interested in their education. If
those two answers are 'yes' then a support system can be built
around them in any type of recovery school.
Helene Cross: We should highlight the distinction between a
recovery school and a treatment school. In recovery school, a young
person has gone through treatment first and they have those tools
that you learn in treatment, so there's a common language and an
opportunity to interact with peers in that culture using those
tools.
RG: Most of the students are also receiving some sort of
therapeutic support outside of the school. So they're in an
intensive outpatient program, family counseling,
they're seeing a private therapist, or they're in some sort of
halfway house. Since they're treatment issues are dealt with
outside of the school, the school is there to wrap their arms
around them and support them in their recovery efforts.
AT: What should students and parents know before
attending recovery high school?
HC: It's a small school. One of the things parents want to know
is how it is different than a normal school. We need to emphasize
the difference in the way we teach and the fact that we understand
recovery and provide this supportive environment, but there are
some things they will sacrifice. A small school doesn't have a
football team, and a small charter school with a limit budget
doesn't have money for electives. We have talented teachers who can
teach art and creative writing and music and we can play sports
outside, but we don't have organized sports the same way a normal
school would. So they need to balance the sacrifices against the
important goal - if we support the recovery and academic success,
then this young person who is very vulnerable in terms of being
able to graduate, will graduate. Sometimes it's harder for the
parent to give up their aspirations of their daughter being the
homecoming queen or their son being a football star, but that's a
decision they have to make.
I asked him why he came back and he
replied "because I can learn at this school."
We've had kids that will start with us and then leave after a
year of good stabilization and academic performance because they
want to be with their friends. I remember one young man in
particular who was here his freshman year then left to go back to
the high school in his area where his friends from grade school
were, but after a semester there, he came back. I asked him why he
came back and he replied "because I can learn at this school."
RG: The other thing to remember is it's not a cure. Coming to a
recovery high school will not cure you of your disease. Kids are
still going to struggle with their addiction, but what it does do
is give them the support and knowledge of what to do. And we also
provide parents with support of how to help their child when
they're not at school. We only have the kids for a relatively short
amount of time during the day since they do go home. We are a
tolerant school, unlike public high schools, because we understand
this is a relapsing disease. What we try and do however is one,
learn from each relapse and two, try to lengthen the time between
relapses because the longer they can go without a relapse the
greater chance of recovery they will have.
AT: Can you explain what a typical day at a Recovery
High School is like?
RG: For one, our school starts later, it starts at nine because
we know that adolescent brains are slower to get started in the
morning and therefore they are not as prepared to learn at 7
o'clock in the morning as they are at 9 o'clock. The first thing we
do in the morning is meet as a community which sets the tone for
the day, and then they go on to their regular credit courses. They
have math, science, social studies and English. Our English
teachers for example will teach all levels of English, so 9th,
10th, 11th and 12th grade, and an elective, so they're very busy.
The real challenge is to keep all the students engaged, so to help
with that we do a lot of project-based learning because we've found
the kids really respond when they do something that connects to
something in everyday life. And then they have a recovery wellness
class everyday where they do a check-in to see how many meetings
they've gone to or what kind of cravings they had that day or here
are the areas where I've succeeded in recovery or here's where I
need more support.
HC: If you walk into one of our science classrooms for example,
you'll see the thread of addiction being part of the lesson. Last
year they did a large cut out of their own body on a piece of paper
and they showed how their brain is affected by addiction and how
genetics plays a role in addiction and the physical effects of
addiction on their body. So it's very interesting, wherever they
can, the teachers will weave the science of addiction into the
curriculum so they understand their disease more.
RG: They also do a lot of cooperative learning. Because this is
the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, the English teacher and the
social studies teacher will do a cooperative project looking at
what Woodstock would have looked like if it took place in 1900.
What would the drugs have been? And what would the impact on our
society have been? And they will be doing a lot of reading and
writing around those components and really looking at addiction and
how it affects social, scientific, and emotional factors.
HC: So we really try to take real life examples and continue to
incorporate those into the curriculum wherever we can.
AT: What is the ultimate goal of recovery high
school?
HC: There are two primary goals, one is to complete high school
and to be prepared for the workforce and the other goal is to
support and retain sobriety so that they're graduating sober.
AT: What does the future look like for recovery
schools?
HC: Recovery schools in general have seen a fairly large
movement lately across the country. Massachusetts for example now
has three recovery schools; in fact they have a statute that came
from their state department of health that sanctions the
development of recovery schools. Minnesota has claim to the first
recovery high school that started in 1989.
RG: There are about 35 recovery high school programs across 19
states in the country and about 15 college programs.
These kids are very vulnerable and they
need support.
HC: So it's really gaining momentum. When we met with the
Association of Recovery Schools last week we were able to share
what we're learning, successes, and methods of teaching so that we
can support each other. And there are always financial issues when
you're a small school, so there was an opportunity to develop
methods of endowing our schools. And I find this very exciting, is
now that schools have been around a while we have data to determine
elements for us to study so we can come up with common benchmarks.
So individually it's hard to come up with these data points, but
when all of the recovery schools come together to share information
we're able to learn more.
It's important for people to recognize that kids in recovery
learn differently and they need an environment that supports the
fact that they learn differently. If we want these kids to be
successful we need to support them. It's very difficult for a kid
in recovery to go back to a normal school. Teachers are bombarded
with students and challenges on a daily basis, how should we expect
them to know the challenges that kids in recovery face? That they
learn differently? It's very difficult, that's why recovery schools
are necessary. These kids are very vulnerable and they need
support.
All Treatment does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information.
