The School of Social Work’s Center for Prevention Research and Development (CPRD) has increasingly focused on understanding youth who recover from substance use disorders at an early age.  These studies on recovering youth use data from CPRD’s biennial Illinois Youth Survey, a large statewide survey 8^th, 10^th, and 12^th graders.  Recently they have published papers and presented at conferences on various topics, including: describing the characteristics of recovering youth, analyses of youth’s recovery capital, and geospatial analyses on whether youth recovery is higher in areas with more recovery supports at the community level.

One of the main findings from this research is that 5.1% of youth in 10^th and 12^th grade reported they were in substance use recovery.  Given the state’s enrollment this equates to thousands of youth.  These teens may not be receiving adequate recovery supports such as developmentally-appropriate treatment, availability of a recovery high school, or youth-friendly support group meetings.

“Supporting substance use recovery at an early age is not widely accepted as prevention,” said Doug Smith, Professor and Director of CPRD.  “But if you consider that people with addictions accumulate more disabling health problems as they age, it should 100% be considered a prevention activity. I worry that recovering teens’ needs aren’t being met because of lower capacity in agencies that started in the pandemic era.”  CPRD is hopeful that these findings will be used by policymakers to reshape the adolescent prevention and treatment system.