Session Seven: Navigating the treatment system

Partnering With Families Affected by Concurrent Disorders

Session Goals

• Review experiences family members have had with the treatment system.
• Highlight negative and positive aspects.
• Identify barriers to getting treatment and support services to work together and to include family members.
• Imagine what an ideal system of care and support would look like.
• Discuss ways that family members can be effective advocates for the needs of people with concurrent disorders and their families.

Content Outline

• Is there a treatment system?
• What should happen: integrated treatment.
• Sequential or parallel treatment.
• Finding treatment.
• Screening and assessment.
• Treatment planning.
• Treatment.

Activities

• 7-1: Exploring Ambivalence about Change
• 7-2: Family Concurrent Disorders Readiness to Change Ruler

Leaders’ Notes

Families are looking for a simple, direct answer on how to negotiate what they see as “the treatment system.” Too often they have failed to get help and support. Our group members told us of appearing and reappearing for help for their family members, only to meet new professionals who did not know about the history. Often they had to tell the story over again and again. Their comments speak to the need for someone who knows their story who can be accessed on an as-needed basis. But without a consistent response capability in the “system,” they found themselves taking on the role of case managers for their family members.

Navigating the treatment system

Because of the importance participants gave to this theme, we decided to organize this session around the concept of navigating the system. We help participants understand how the components of the treatment system work and emphasize the importance of becoming proactive so they can make existing health care resources work better for them and their family member. This can be a “grassroots” strategy for getting treatment resources to become more interrelated and collaborative: in other words, the “system” that consumers and family think it should be.

Chapter 7 in A Family Guide to Concurrent Disorders includes tools to help families work with service providers:

• a list of questions to ask a treatment agency
• a sample family information document
• a form for tracking treatment history
• questions to ask about transition or discharge plans.

We suggest using the treatment history form to help family members summarize the family’s experience of trying to navigate the system. Ask them to share their stories and use their responses to make a list on a flip chart. Then ask participants to discuss ways to change the outcome, or share examples of when things have worked well and what made a difference.

Motivation and change

We also find it helpful to discuss motivation and stages of change as they relate to how ready and willing both the person with concurrent disorders and the family are to seek help. You can use Activity 7-1: Exploring Ambivalence about Change to pick up the discussion about benefits and cost of substance use that you started in Session 2. Activity 7-2: The Family Concurrent Disorders Readiness to Change Ruler gives family members a chance to evaluate how ready they are to make changes in their beliefs and behaviours.

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Partnering With Families Affected by Concurrent Disorders - Facilitators' Guide

• Overview
• Working with families
• Preparation
• Implementation
• Evaluation
• Session Outlines
  • Session 1: Introduction
  • Session 2: Substance use problems
  • Session 3: Mental health problems
  • Session 4: How concurrent disorders affect family life
  • Session 5: Self-care
  • Session 6: Stigma
  • Session 7: Navigating the treatment system
  • Session 8: Medication
  • Session 9: Relapse prevention
  • Session 10: Crisis and emergency
  • Session 11: Recovery
  • Session 12: Saying goodbye
• References
• Resources
• Appendix 1: An Overview of the Research
• Appendix 2: The Partnering With Families Affected by Concurrent Disorders Project

• Print