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Social Support in Substance Abuse Recovery and Community Re-entry: The Impact of Alumni Group Participation on Women Following Discharge from a Correctional Therapeutic Community

Linley, Jessica Veneskey
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461953394

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Social Work.
In the past 30 years, the number of substance-abusing women being incarcerated and receiving treatment in prison has increased dramatically. Aftercare is important in recovery, so as more women are released, the need for aftercare for in-prison treatment will remain high. One type of aftercare is an Alumni Group: a mutual aid and peer support group for former residents of a treatment program. Alumni Groups have not been studied empirically. Furthermore, offender substance abuse outcomes have typically been restricted to return-to-custody and relapse to drug use; researchers have only recently started considering the quality of life as an outcome. Female offenders’ need for aftercare, the importance of peer support to recovery, the lack of research on Alumni Groups, and the recognition that recovery is more than just abstinence led to the idea for this study. If participation in the Alumni Group were correlated with high levels of positive outcomes, it might make a useful model to be replicated for other programs. Furthermore, if researchers can define participation more clearly and use Alumni feedback on quality of life to establish a broader range of outcomes, it may be possible to give clinicians a better set of guidelines for creating and working within this model. This cross-sectional study examined the outcomes of a sample of Alumni Group members. The researcher interviewed 100 former residents of an in-prison therapeutic community with a range of Alumni Group participation levels, and hypothesized that higher levels of participation in the Alumni Group would be associated with better outcomes. Poisson, logistic, and standard OLS regression were used to compare the participants’ outcomes of criminal justice involvement, relapse to substance use, and self-reported quality-of-life. Limited support was found for correlation between higher Alumni Group participation and lower rates of criminal justice involvement. Other findings did not directly support the hypotheses, but offered further evidence about the role of social support in recovery. Specifically, social support received from other Alumni members within the past 30 days was correlated with relapse to substance use since release, and social support given to other Alumni within the past 30 days was correlated with lower physical quality of life. In addition, a number of findings not directly related to the hypotheses emerged. Recent mental health problems were correlated with higher rates of negative contacts with the law, higher rates of relapse, and lower perceived physical, psychological, social, and environmental quality of life. The study also found other predictors of quality of life that were supported by the literature. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
Keith Warren, PhD (Advisor)
Thomas Gregoire, PhD (Committee Member)
Audrey Begun, PhD (Committee Member)
206 p.
Social Work
substance use; social support; alumni groups; therapeutic community; women

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Linley, J. V. (2016). Social Support in Substance Abuse Recovery and Community Re-entry: The Impact of Alumni Group Participation on Women Following Discharge from a Correctional Therapeutic Community [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461953394

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Linley, Jessica. Social Support in Substance Abuse Recovery and Community Re-entry: The Impact of Alumni Group Participation on Women Following Discharge from a Correctional Therapeutic Community. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461953394.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Linley, Jessica. "Social Support in Substance Abuse Recovery and Community Re-entry: The Impact of Alumni Group Participation on Women Following Discharge from a Correctional Therapeutic Community." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461953394

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1461953394
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© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.