Training & Education

Overview

Since our founding, NARR has placed a heavy emphasis on training, education, and professional development. One or more training and education programs are usually part of our state-level consulting work. We deliver training and educational content in various formats depending on audience needs and budgets.

Live on-site and remote workshops

Until recently most of our training has been in live, in-person or remote workshop formats. We tailor the content for this training to an individual client’s needs and budget, whether it be a NARR affiliate, state agency or other organizations.

Online self-paced workshops

We have expanded our capabilities and offerings to include cloud-based, modular courses that individuals may complete on their own schedules. The content for these is highly visual and based on video conversations with subject matter experts. Our first offering, a 20-module workshop on meeting NARR’s best practice standards, has been well received and is available either through our state affiliate organizations or directly from us. For a few states we have also developed customized modules tailored to state-specific requirements.

We have assembled a first-rate production team. Training and educational content draws on the experience of our national network of recovery housing subject matter experts. Topics we have addressed include:

  • Best practices in the operation of recovery residences; targeted audiences include operators and peer staff members
  • NARR Code of Ethics
  • Medication management and MOUD issues
  • Best practices for supporting LGBTQ+ residents
  • Role and functions of NARR affiliate organizations (usually delivered to state policy makers and agencies)
  • Training for trainers in any of these topics
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Course Catalog

Designed for recovery residence operators and managers, below is a list of current online training programs available to purchase.

NARR 00:  Welcome to the NARR Standard 3.0 

  1. Create or update recovery residence policies and procedures to meet NARR Standard 3.0.
  2. Implement or enhance your recovery residence’s social model practices and staff/leader position descriptions to facilitate a safe and healthy recovery community experience.
  3. Identify culturally congruent resources in your community and engage residents in vetting relevant recovery resources. purchasing the course contact

NARR 01: Introduction to NARR 

  1. Identify five key elements of a recovery residence.
  2. Articulate NARR's mission.
  3. Explain the format of the NARR National Standard 3.0 and differentiate the four domains.
  4. List the variables that identify NARR's four Recovery Residence Levels of Support.
  5. Delineate your home's NARR Level.

NARR 02:  Recovery Residence Certification

  1. Tell your recovery residence story, your 'why' for being a recovery residence provider.
  2. Identify the key benefits to certification as well as benefits to those served by recovery residences.
  3. List the steps of the recovery home certification process.
  4. Implement action steps to effectively collaborate with your affiliate and affiliate peers to enhance your home's operations and community.

NARR 03:  Social Model Part 1 - Building Community

  1. Explain ways to create a sense of community within your recovery residence and self-evaluate those methods.
  2. Use social model language and concepts to frame community and belonging in your residence.
  3. Describe the process of giving and receiving feedback using Relationship Enhancement Skills during recovery residence community meetings.

NARR 04:  Social model Part 2 – Evolution, Essential Understandings and Application

  1. Name the six primary characteristics of the Social Model of Recovery and identify examples of applications in your residence.
  2. Contrast Social Model-based organizations with others that promote recovery and identify how collaboration may occur with individuals in a RR.
  3. Use components of the Social Model Philosophy Scale to identify the key elements for developing a sense of community.
  4. Identify areas of operation where peer-based recovery support can be created and strengthened within your recovery home.

NARR 05: Standards 1, 2 & 3 - Getting Started

  1. Create or assess your recovery residence vision and mission statements along with their alignment to daily operations and decision-making.
  2. Evaluate your organization's core business practices and create policy and procedures that reflect vision, mission and values congruency and best practices.
  3. Demonstrate financially honest and forthright business practices in your recovery residence operations.

NARR 06: Standard 4 - Data Collection and Continuous Quality Improvement

  1. List essential resident information (data) needed to assess your recovery residence's daily operations' congruence with the organization's vision, mission, and values.
  2. Identify the process and outcome metrics needed to monitor resident progress.
  3. Establish a quality and outcome improvement system for continuously assessing your residence's operations.

NARR 07: Standards 5, 6 & 7 abc - Essential Agreements

  1. Execute welcome (entry), goodbye (exit) and financial policies and procedures with integrity that empowers a resident-driven culture with resident-informed agreements.
  2. Protect residents’ personal identifiable information (PII) while also adhering to applicable state and federal confidentiality laws.
  3. Promote a social model recovery culture via staffing and residence governance policies and procedures.
  4. Implement a grievance policy and procedure.

NARR 08: Staff - Standards 7d-10 - Creating an Empowerment Culture

  1. Articulate essential ways staff facilitate a social model-based culture of empowerment in the recovery residence to include: (7 & 8)
  2. Resident self-determination, i.e. goals, length of stay.
  3. Resident participation in governance.
  4. Rules and cultural norms (standards) - written and unwritten.
  5. Tiered increase in responsibility and leadership.
  6. Create policies that support practices appropriate to the recovery residence level regarding support, training and encouragement for authenticity and self-care by staff (and resident leaders). (9 & 10)

NARR 09: Standard 11 - Cultural Responsiveness

  1. Develop and/or assess your recovery residence policies and procedures' alignment with the priority population identified in your mission and vision.
  2. Identify cultural factors that influence the recovery experiences of residents, staff, and volunteers.
  3. Assess your cultural humility and efforts to promote identity safety and prosocial development within culturally congruent and diverse recovery networks.

NARR 10:  Standards 12 & 13 - Clear and Supported Social Model Staff Positions

  1. Write staff job descriptions and requirements appropriate to the level and needs of the residence.
  2. Identify skills and tools that create a positive and authentic work environment where staff professional development and accomplishments are supported and recognized.

NARR 11 - Recovery Residence Ethics

  1. Distinguish the relevance of ethics, morals, and laws.
  2. Apply the 20 principles contained in the NARR Code of Ethics to organizational operating procedures; and
  3. Incorporate the NARR Ethics Guidelines for Drug Testing and Patient Brokering into your operating procedures.

NARR 12 - Standards 14 & 15 - Creating a Home-Like Environment

  1. Self-assess your recovery residence for essential elements of a safe, comfortable, home-like environment.
  2. Identify key physical attributes within a recovery home that contribute to building community.

NARR 13 - Recovery Residence Rights and Responsibilities

  1. Describe the essential fair housing and zoning rights of recovery residences.
  2. Cite relevant applications of the Americans with Disability Act for people living in recovery residences.
  3. Identify essential resident rights including in recovery residence policies and procedures.
  4. Create or modify policies and procedures that align with standards 2, 3, 5, and 6. 

NARR 14: Standard 16-18 - Promote a Safe and Healthy Environment

  1. Create policy and practices that are aligned with the NARR Standard for an alcohol and illicit drug free environment including:
  2. Return to use (relapse) policy
  3. Search policy
  4. Drug testing policy.
  5. Identify safe practices for medication management including medication-assisted treatment (MAT).
  6. Develop resident safety and emergency protocols.
  7. Create policies regarding smoke-free environments.
  8. Address preventing airborne pathogens, including COVID-19, in policies and practices.
  9. Create and maintain a physically safe environment within the home.

NARR 15: Standard 19 - Emergency Preparedness

  1. Identify emergency situations that commonly occur in recovery residences.
  2. Enact emergency preparedness action plans that include social model-based policies and procedures.
  3. Effectively engage residents in emergency preparedness practices that are part of the routine and culture of the community.

NARR 16: Standards 20-25 - Facilitate Active Recovery and Recovery Community Engagement 

  1. Use your recovery residence’s assets to facilitate engagement in meaningful activities.
  2. Identify existing recovery capital development opportunities within your residence.
  3. Review your recovery residence’s methods of facilitating access to community support.
  4. Describe examples and growth opportunities for positive, empowered role modeling, leadership development, and community building within your residence.

NARR 17:  Standard 26 - Respectful, Emotionally Safe Environment

  1. Self-evaluate your recovery residence’s strength-based, recovery-oriented, and prosocial culture.
  2. Identify potential implications of residents’ past trauma on interactions in the recovery residence.
  3. Apply new skills and best practices for promoting resilience and trauma-informed support within your residence community.
  4. Identify specific ways residents’ voices are heard and incorporated in community life and operations.

NARR 18:  Standards 27-29 - Community Building Essentials 

  1. Assess how your recovery residence forms and sustains a ‘functionally equivalent family’ in your residence.
  2. Evaluate staff-resident relationships within opportunities for informal activities and mutually supportive social interactions.
  3. Identify how residents are acknowledged, affirmed, and challenged with growth opportunities.
  4. Develop or update your networking list by which residents are linked in the community at large along with vetting of the resources by current and former residents.

NARR 19:  Standards 30 & 31 - Good Neighbor Essentials

  1. Model prosocial engagements with the community in which the recovery residence is located.
  2. Review and align with standard 30 your neighborhood interaction, involvement and communication policies and procedures.
  3. Maintain essential community courtesy policies, procedures, and associated documentation.

NARR 20:  Social Model Applications in Daily Operations

  1. A deeper dive into additional, operationally relevant considerations.

To purchase one or more training programs or if you have questions About NARR training or content development services, please contact us below.

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