Family Involvement and Recovery Education: Supporting Clinicians Serving Youth with Opioid Use Problems

We know that young adults are disproportionately affected by the opioid crisis, and that this age group can be difficult to engage in treatment. This results in low treatment attendance, low medication for OUD utilization, and for those who do enter treatment, typically low retention. We also know that family involvement has been shown to improve outcomes and can be leveraged to help more young adults seek treatment and remain engaged in recovery.

With Opioid Response Network funds and support from AAAP, our team developed a protocol of techniques for providers working with young adults with OUD, geared at improving treatment retention and recovery outcomes by leveraging family involvement along the way. With these techniques in mind, we also created a library of video vignettes, featuring clinicians in sessions with young adults and/or concerned significant others. The video vignettes feature a diverse group of therapists, young people, and family members and model in person and telehealth therapy sessions.

The end result is a comprehensive self-paced online course designed to support clinicians who serve youth with opioid use problems and their families. FIREFrame demonstrates ways to assess and bolster youth recovery capital and prioritize the involvement of concerned significant others in their treatment and medication decision-making. FIREFrame includes an introductory webinar, followed by a series of brief exercises. Each exercise begins with brief didactic information on a set of therapeutic techniques, followed by a video clip of a therapy session and activities to reinforce and assess knowledge.