5. Analyze Kevin
Kevin Part 1
The format for Kevin will be exactly the same as we used for Wiley above but in this case, we will ask you both to review what the data presented shows but also for you to do the interpretation and to make sense of the findings.
We want you to imagine that Kevin, a 35-year old white male, who has been referred from the drug court to your program, has just completed his baseline assessment and that he is sitting with you at your terminal waiting to make sense of the results.
He was not particularly enthusiastic when completing the form with you but has done so and now you have to walk him through the results – and in the Recovery Care Plan Course, we will show you how to translate that into creating a Recovery Care Plan that will address his issues and help him to build ongoing recovery strengths.
So as with Wiley, the first issue to address is around overall well-being and quality of life as shown in the first Kevin results panel below:
Kevin Part 2
The second grid switches from the initial section assessing current wellbeing to the first of two sections that address ‘negative recovery capital’ starting with barriers to recovery:
The first potential barrier around accommodation does not apply to Kevin as he has no immediate issues around eviction, or acute housing problems, or any difficulties securing housing because of debt issues. He has spent all of the time prior to his admission to the recovery house with his family (87 days out of the last 90).
The second section addresses substance use and here you can see there is a current barrier for Kevin. He answers yes to the question about substance use so we then have to explore what the substance use issue is. From the grid above you can see that Kevin has used various substances including amphetamines, street benzos (benzodiazepines are a form of prescription sedative-anxiolytics), cocaine powder, methamphetamine, and tobacco. You'll also notice that under each substance used since the last rec-cap assessment we collect the number of days that Kevin used that substance.
Your first task will be to confirm that is accurate and to check that there is nothing missing. However, the third potential risk factor about injecting and resulting risks from blood-borne viruses do not apply to Kevin, so the next risk factor in the table is criminal justice. Kevin reports not only involvement with the police but active involvement in offending in the last 90 days as well as being involved in a car accident.
The last section of the barriers component is about LACK OF meaningful activities and Kevin reports no work, training or volunteering in the last 90 days. In other words, Kevin is presenting with three barriers to recovery:
- Ongoing substance use
- Offending and involvement with the justice system
- Lack of any meaningful activities
Scoring three out of five barriers suggests there is some work to do before it is realistic to start building resources and assets for the recovery journey. The second area of negative recovery capital, which also needs to be addressed, is around unmet service and support needs.
Reading the information below, you can tell Kevin reports he is not currently engaged with drug treatment services but that he does need help in this area, which is not the case for alcohol treatment. However, he also has no engagement with mental health services but recognizes his needs in this area. He also recognizes his need for additional support around employment and primary care but reports no service needs about housing, family support or any other types of professional help.
Kevin Part 3
We now transition to discussing strengths and explaining these to Kevin. What is presented (for your information only) are the responses to each individual item of the next three sections:
- Personal recovery capital
- Social recovery capital
- Community recovery capital (from the Recovery Group Participation Scale)
While these are the main strength areas, we will also provide you with the questions for the Social Support measure, the Commitment to Sobriety Scale (CSS), and the open-ended questions that are critical to understanding the personal and subjective component of the recovery capital measurement model.
As you can see above, there are 25 Personal Recovery Capital questions. These are split into five sub-scales (see the summary score below) and the same is true for the Social Recovery Capital questions presented with Kevin’s responses below.
Here we transition to the critical point from the ‘shared’ components of recovery to the ‘personal’ ones. This is important for two reasons – the person in recovery is now able to say where they see themselves, and what they want. Your aim here is to be able to think about how their goals link with the emerging picture from the REC-CAP summary. For Kevin:
What is clear for Kevin – and this will be common for people at the start of their recovery journey – the goals are very short-term. It is also important to note that his current goals are survival and improving his mental health rather than focusing specifically on substance use issues. His request for service engagement identified in the unmet needs section can be linked to his own personal request for ‘therapy’ and it will be important for you to ask him what exactly he means by this so you can help him on his journey to address this goal.
From these responses we can conclude that Kevin has had very little specialist support prior to his arrival. Our aim here is to assertively link Kevin into local community resources that can address the needs he has identified.
Kevin Part 4
Now, let's review Kevin's REC-CAP summary that was provided based on his responses. We will work through the summaries one section at a time.
So firstly, the overall score is negative, meaning, that barriers and unmet needs exceed the strengths for Kevin at this point in his recovery journey. That is not surprising given his recent transition from justice, the barriers and unmet needs identified, and again it is reflected in the four red bars for overall well-being with only quality of accommodation scoring at a currently acceptable level.
Kevin has three of the five barriers to recovery which are displayed in red as they scored low as shown in the chart above with only risk and accommodation being free from recovery barriers.
In addition to the three barriers, the above summary shows the four unmet needs in red around- drug treatment, primary care, mental health services, and employment services.
Kevin Part 5
It is time to move on to strengths and it is important that you are able to understand what this chart shows by quickly looking at it.
- Of the bar chart, the left five bars are the sub-scales for Personal Recovery Capital and the five on the right are the five sub-scales for Social Recovery Capital.
- Of the three ‘donuts’ on the right-hand side of the image, Community Recovery Capital (CRC) is at the top, outside support is in the middle, and Commitment to Sobriety is at the bottom.
There are two clear strengths identified (in green) – for community involvement and for social support.
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