Promoting Recovery from Substance Misuse through Engagement with Community Assets: Asset Based Community Engagement

Abstract

Evidence shows that engagement with community resources can aid the process of recovery from substance misuse, yet systematic approaches to mapping resources and building bridges to these for recovery populations are limited. If done successfully, engagement with resources that are pro-social and afford access to meaningful activities not only provides a platform for personal development, but also has the ability to trigger a social contagion of positive behaviour and improve connectedness within communities. The current paper uses Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) as the basis for an enhanced version called Asset Based Community Engagement (ABCE). The work of ABCD has been pivotal in encouraging citizen-led, strengths-based approaches to community development, yet scientific support for it remains limited. While this approach has gained much traction, it has been subject to criticism for being too optimistic and unsystematic. In response to this, the new framework, ABCE, offers a more structured approach to mapping community resources. It does however advance previous work by acknowledging the need to identify current levels of community engagement and barriers to engagement, in order to support empowerment, maximise personal capital and address barriers to engagement. Identifying barriers to engagement should not draw ABCE away from its strengths-based focus but instead, provide a platform for person-centred, holistic support to be provided to those in recovery. To support the new framework, a workbook has been developed, offering a practical output that is intended to be used by the individual in recovery alongside a member of staff within a professional service supporting the individual.

The role of social mechanisms of change in women’s addiction recovery trajectories

“…The women's narratives also revealed the development of supportive friendships with other women in recovery. Interestingly, a key subtheme and a characteristic of these friendships was engagement in activities that were not all explicitly recovery-centric (again supporting the development of a full and well-rounded identity), and supportive of existing literature (Best et al, 2017;Collinson & Best, 2019;Rettie et al, 2020). Friendships based on shared experience were also described as protective against stigma, a key barrier to recovery for women (Gunn & Canada, 2015;Hammarlund et al, 2018;Neale, 2004).…”

“…Friendships and holistic identities developed also enhanced women's agency and helped to increase their sense of empowerment. Policy and practice should therefore acknowledge the importance of the relational components of recovery for women, drawing upon practical frameworks such as ABCE (Collinson & Best, 2019) where appropriate to link women in with new meaningful activities, subsequently maximising agency, opportunities for identity development, and relational potential.…”

“…In response to these findings, we suggest community based recovery services might consider using the Asset Based Community Engagement (ABCE) framework (Collinson & Best, 2019) as one potential method to support the women who reported an absence of pro-social networks and involvement in such activities, subsequently promoting the development of a balanced identity. ABCE is an evidence-based framework which is intended to support practitioners to identify a service users' current levels of community engagement and barriers to engagement, whilst also mapping community resources and identifying pathways into these resources.…”

Managing Substance Use Disorder through a Walking/Running Training Program

“…Establishing recovery capital should be a focus during treatment, in hopes that clients adopt those resources or healthy lifestyles while returning to society. 34 This also indicated adaptive continuing care for people who are recovering from SUD is necessary. 35 If participants can stay in the healthy environment provided by treatment facility and continue receiving appropriate treatment services, they might be more likely to experience positive outcomes.…”

Supporting community participation in a pandemic

“…Effective implementation of ABCD relies on discovering and productively connecting individual, associational, institutional, physical (built and natural environment), economic, and cultural assets. 2 …”