I’ve been doing the same work for the last 15 years. In 2004 I started doing in-home clinical case management and coaching for young adults who were either leaving treatment through “graduating” or getting kicked out. This was in Boulder, Colorado. All the staff were master’s-level clinicians who went into the homes in Assertive Community Treatment teams, providing wrap-around support and integrated care and coaching services.
When I moved to San Diego in 2011 I wanted to replicate this model of working with dual diagnosis clients and their families but the market’s needs were for us to have a greater focus on working with adolescents, as well as primary mental health and more severe addiction and behavioral health issues. Since 2012 we have done this successfully and have had the privilege of working with great clinicians and clinical teams, excellent treatment centers and providers in the greater San Diego area.
Since 2012 we have worked with over 220 clients and families. Each of our staff members are Master’s-level clinician or better, first. From there we train and deploy them with our coaching model and curriculum to do the work with clients and families. They have a skilled, clinically-savvy, and gritty real-world way of relating therapeutically to what’s arising in the moment, having panoramic awareness and clinical insight to be able to make the needed skillful interventions and build relationships in a way that can affect the positive change we are looking to effect.
Recently a company has popped up that has created a little bit of brand confusion for us. But more importantly, it’s been an opportunity to remind people of who we are and who we are not. It’s an opportunity to speak to the fact that many “coaches”, “sober coaches” and “companions” don’t have the clinical training to do the work in the way that best supports the client’s positive outcomes.
We are not simply people in recovery. Some of our staff are in recovery some are not. The Active Recovery Network team are clinicians first and foremost. However, we take that clinical training “out of the box” and shift it to function in a different role and different capacity in the context of our clients and our family’s lives. We are not simply coaches or mentors. The therapeutic training has been extensive and exhaustive and continues while they are staff members with Active Recovery Network and we have multiple community-based supervising clinicians who round out the support of our team, lending us their support, supervision and guidance in adolescent and primary mental health specialties.
For our clients who need a therapist and/or a psychiatrist, we ensure we connect them with trusted professionals and look forward to, and find essential, collaborating with these professionals. Though I’ve been doing this for 15 years and leading teams doing the same, we look for every opportunity to stand on the shoulders of these wonderful professionals in our communities. This collaboration in the “real world”, community setting is essential and allows our clients to make the supportive connections that they need as they continue to move forward and turn the world into their healing milieu. We enjoy, wholeheartedly, collaborating with each referral source, partner and provider and look forward to continued growth and are happy, honored and proud to play the role that we do in the recovery community.
We hope that this finds you well and if there is ever any confusion as to who we are, what we do, what we value, or any question about the level of integrity in the work that we do, please feel free to be in touch. I’d love to buy you coffee and talk further or but you in touch with our satisfied and appreciative clients and families who like to remind us that they are standing by to talk to professionals, potential clients or families about the good and skillful work that we do. Thank you for your time in reading this and for your ongoing support and collaboration.