Associate Director of Biostatistics; Member of the Faculty Recovery Research Institute, MGH; Harvard Medical School Norwell, Massachusetts
Session Description: Addiction recovery is difficult for adolescents and emerging adults and often involves multiple rounds of treatment and supports. Social recovery capital (e.g., sober friends, family, peer groups) is vital to reducing substance use. Social contexts shape social identity – who I am – which is generated from social group memberships – who we are. Social identity develops through interaction with social groups and changes over time as adolescents develop and engage with different social groups. As peer norms and values are strong influences on youth health and risk behaviors, one’s social identity is an important determinant of actual behaviors in social contexts. Recovery becomes more or less difficult depending on social influences and how these interact with other recovery capital resources. This presentation will discuss the research on the importance social recovery capital for youth recovery, discuss the process of social identity change during treatment and recovery, and describe how one novel and visual approach, Social Identity Mapping (SIM) can be used to measure and reflect with an adolescent on their immediate social influences. Results from a mixed method study with 25 recovering youth (12–19-year-olds) will be presented to demonstrate key network characteristics and reflective themes from the post-SIM interviews. The practical knowledge gained will be to understand what social identity mapping is, and how it can be used as a visual tool, along with targeted reflection questions, to enable youth reflection and increase practitioner-youth engagement and connection.
Learning Objectives:
After this activity participants should be able to
Describe the different ways that social influences can act as dual influences on youth recovery: as both barriers and resources to the youth experiences
Describe the process of social identity mapping and the output it provides
Assess how social identity mapping and reflective questioning could be used in their own work with youth
