Alcohol & Drug Abuse Programs and 9 more...less...

Substance Abuse Strategies

Vermont Department of Health - AHS Goal 2

Health Department 186 Performance Measures

Alcohol & Drug Abuse Programs (PPMB)

ADAP Vantage

ADAP Act 186

ADAP HV2020

Increase access to substance use disorder services. AHS will increase access to effective substance use disorder services for families and individuals to mitigate the impact of substance use disorders in Vermont communities.

Substance Abuse Treatment

Social Supports: Are youth and adults leaving treatment with more support than when they started? Measured as percent of treatment clients (excluding residential detoxification and detoxification treatment) who have more social supports on discharge than on admission.

13%Q1 2021

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Story Behind the Curve

Last Updated: December 2014

Author: Alcohol & Drug Abuse Programs, Vermont Department of Health

Individuals with addiction have complex lives. There is also shame associated with the disease of addiction and can result in isolation for those struggling. This isolation prevents people from accessing positive supports that are needed to recover from addiction. Socials supports include non-professional or peer-driven organizations devoted to helping individuals who have addiction related problems and include self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA), supported housing, recovery coaching, faith-based services, after-school activities, as well as substance-free gathering places such as the recovery centers. The Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs (ADAP) collects information about the level of social supports at both treatment admission and discharge and has set a goal of increasing the level of social supports at discharge over that at admission. Current data indicates that 65% of those receiving outpatient and Medication Assisted Therapies (MAT) in Vermont have no social supports on admission. Only 45% of the population has social supports on discharge.

Partners

ADAP Preferred Providers

Recovery Centers

Faith Based Community

Housing Community

ADAP Staff

What Works

Social Supports must match the need of the individual and be available on a timely basis. They must be appropriate and supportive to the individual's needs and wants.Supports must align with the stage of recovery and be population specific. For instance, women may have different social support needs than men. Those with trauma in their lives may need unique supports. Adolescent social supports must be aligned with the client's developmental stage.

Providers focus on quality improvement processes such as NIATx (http://www.niatx.net/) to determine the root causes of low change in social support between admission and discharge.

Action Plan

Publish provider level data
Include as an Agency of Administration pilot measure
Decrease variability in provider performance
Provide technical assistance to providers with low rates of social supports
Include as a grant incentive measure
System Improvements
Improve collaboration between the providers and recovery centers
Increase programming and hours of operation of recovery centers
Provide clinical supervisor training to emphasize social supports through the treatment and recovery process
Improve aftercare planning to emphasize the importance of connecting to social supports as part of the recovery process
Increase focus on this measure

Why Is This Important?

Together these performance measures focus on whether Vermonters are better off as a result of the Health Department's Alcohol & Drug Abuse Program. They do so by looking at the quality and efficiency of these programs and services. This performance measure is important because it measures if Vermonters are BETTER OFF; it measures quantity and quality of program effect.

Notes on Methodology

Reporting is dependent on timely reporting by providers as measures cannot be calculated until data has been received and processed. This may result in delayed scorecard updates.