Roff Institute at CARES

Advanced Learning for Addiction Professionals

Course Description: This class is designed to give an overview of the changing language, and therefore the changing conceptual framework, of what we call “The Field of Addiction and Recovery”. The class addresses the specific role of peer recovery in both changing language and working within the challenging framework it implies.

Upcoming Classes:

VIRTUAL:  Changing Language in Addiction & Recovery Prevention – TBD

CONTACT US AT RoffInstitute@mcpik.org TO LEARN MORE.

Course Description: Research and data are confirming that up 75% of individuals who have a Substance Use Disorder have reported significant trauma in their lives. Becoming “trauma-informed means recognizing that people often have different types of trauma in their lives. Often, trauma survivors can be re-traumatized by well-meaning caregivers, including a CPRS.

Upon completion of this training, individuals will better understand what trauma means, including:

• different types of trauma
• the impact trauma has on predicting adverse adult experience
• recognize trauma responses in those we are trying to help
• how to become aware of our own trauma, especially considering the impact of working with traumatized individuals has on your own self-care and your own possible trauma
• how do we work with other’s trauma while understanding and accepting your own limitations,
• when and how to make to a proper referral for a person experiencing severe PTSD type symptoms

Course Description: Recent data and research are showing large increases with people who have co-occurring mental health issues and substance use disorders. As a CPRS you are trained to use your own lived experience to help another with whom you can identify, learn from and respect. If there is a connection between yourself as a CPRS and the person you are helping in terms of mental health issues, there will be a strong urge to share your own experience with them.

This training is designed to enter that land of self-disclosure very mindfully, with a proper sense of boundaries and ethical guidelines in terms of uses of medication. Similar to how a substance use disorder diagnosis exists on a spectrum, the same is true of most mental health issues. The symptoms can be mild, moderate or severe. The help you give someone in terms of non-clinical assistance with a drug and alcohol problem will depend upon where the person you are helping is on that spectrum.

Upon completion of this training, students will understand what is meant by the spectrum of “co-occurring,” how that diagnosis or label can either help or hurt that person, and how to best serve them if-and-when a referral becomes necessary.

Who are Peer Recovery Specialists and what do they do? Can peer recovery specialists operate within a harm reduction paradigm or do they only move individuals toward abstinence?

With the emerging trend toward harm reduction practices across the country ranging from Medicated Assisted Treatment to less formal practices as needle exchange services, safe injection sites, access to naloxone kits and fentanyl test strips it is important to understand the role of peers under these circumstances. This training helps identify how a Peer Recovery Philosophy operates within the context of a harm reduction framework:

• moving individuals toward their own self-defined pathway of recovery toward multiple pathways of recovery
• not making abstinence the only acceptable goal
• participation in 12 step philosophy optional

This Training provides 6 Renewal credits for all certifications governed by the Addictions Professionals Certification Board of NJ.

Meet the teacher:

The Roff Institute was named after Patrick Roff. Patrick Roff is a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LCADC), a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist (CPRS) and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy.  Patrick is Co-Founder of the Center for Addiction Recovery Education and Success (CARES), a peer operated recovery center in Rockaway, NJ. and is currently working as an Alcohol and Drug Counselor at Excel Treatment Center in Dover, NJ. He is the author of the original Certified Peer Recovery Specialist (CPRS) curriculum that leads to state certification for the CPRS in New Jersey. Patrick continues to create curriculum and train peer-related classes at CARES; including Peer Oversight and Management, The Role of Peers in a Harm Reduction Framework, Developing Cultural Competency in Peer Recovery Specialists working with LGBTQ+ Populations and Peer Work within Diverse Ethnic and Race Populations.