Second Growth - Services in support of safe and successful young lives

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“I can’t tell you how nice it is to listen to someone who has worked with the “worst kids” over many years and diverse situations and still has faith that the kernels of goodness inside these kids may see them through the toughest of times. Listening to Robert restored a little of that hope in me.”
—Mother of a runaway

Client services

Second Growth employs professional staff members in an active role of coaching more than traditional counseling. By keeping the talk simple, we engage adolescent and young adult clients in a practical dialogue about what has gone wrong in their lives and what to do about it. Our approach to client services features a blend of practical education, behavioral coaching, social/vocational skills building, and open-ended advocacy. With a compassionate and motivating style, we help our clients develop their own goals and work toward them, one day at a time.

BETTER CHOICES

The Better Choices Program is an early-intervention resource for young people who have been involved in a first offense of substance abuse, violence, or shoplifting/vandalism. The program is a short-term, goal-oriented, skills-building experience that assists participants using an asset-development approach, to:

  • Improve their skills for understanding and managing emotions that have created personal challenges
  • Expand their network of positive support
  • Develop planning and problem-solving strengths needed for greater success in education, employment, arts, or athletics
  • Gather essential information about critical areas of risk behavior they need, to make more informed choices
  • Engage in an honest look at the impact of their harmful choices and make plans for appropriate reparations.

Better Choices is an adaptable framework for brief intervention of 4-6 sessions, which may be used as individual or group support in school or community settings. The program engages participants in a dialogue about building stronger connections with people, places, and things that matter in their lives. While our approach is free from shame or blame, the program respectfully promotes the development of a greater sense of personal responsibility in each participant. The harm reduction program is built on the belief that delivering the right amount of the right service, at the right time, will best help youth to redirect destructive behavior into truly better choices.

Better Choices began as a school-based intervention and has evolved into a program that has also become a useful model for court diversion and community justice programs. Currently, Second Growth receives constant referrals from professionals in the legal, education, healthcare, and social service systems.

Sponsored in part by Upper Valley United Way and the Byrne Foundation.

MAKING CHANGE

Making Change is a substance abuse support group for young people ages 14–21 who are considering or committed to recovery. A 60-minute, open-ended weekly group that delivers information, motivation, and peer support, Making Change uses a structured format to address some of the most critical issues of early recovery for young people.

Engaging young substance abusers and their friends in a challenging, but “participant-friendly” dialogue about choices, Making Change employs a consistent, but flexible, script to speak with young people in various stages of change.

Created by Second Growth in 2004, the original group was initiated at the request of local teens looking for their own young people’s recovery support group. Since that time, Making Change has served over 120 adolescents from 20 towns in the Upper Valley region of VT and NH. Currently, the Making Change model is used by professionals to lead groups in other areas of VT (Middlebury) and NH (North Haverhill, Plaistow, Manchester, Littleton, and Hampton).

This is a beginner’s group for recovery from substance abuse, which helps get young people thinking. Not AA or NA, but an experience that encourages 12-step involvement, Making Change is a starting place that engages youth in a dialogue about choices. An essential, but often overlooked intervention in a continuum of care, Making Change serves as a “half-step group” for some young people who are not ready to take the First Step. Making Change is a complementary resource that enhances the NA/AA experience for young people and promotes the greater success of agency or school-based counseling resources.

Making Change is an accessible method for cultivating resiliency in young people, which reduces barriers to substance abuse services: Making Change is free, confidential, and requires no sign-up or ongoing commitment. Instead, it offers an open invitation for young people to simply show up and check it out. An active youth volunteer network helps provide transportation to the group for beginners or those who are ready to try again.

Making Change is a substance abuse strategy that helps to create a sense of safety, purpose, belonging, and hope among a group of young people:

  • Non-threatening language in an informal setting opens the door for young people to truthfully tell their own stories about substance use.
  • Exploring with each other the potential impact of substance related choices before they are made.
  • Engaging and motivating clients to develop life goals and action plans.
  • Presenting the facts about specific risk factors for addiction in a teaching-without-preaching style.
  • Identifying traps and triggers for relapse and the corresponding sources of safety and support for recovery.

Making Change was a featured workshop at the 2006 NH Substance Abuse Conference. Second Growth received a 2007 Service to Science Award by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention for evaluation of Making Change. In 2008, the further evaluation and expansion of Making Change has been funded by NH Charitable Foundation and an anonymous gift.

Sponsored by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Grafton County Human Services

MOMENTUM – Mentoring

An increasing number of adolescent girls are introduced to substance abuse by the negative influences of older peers and young adults. The path to self-destruction is short and quick for the most vulnerable among this population. Options for intervention are few for resistant youth who may have difficulty developing trusting relationships with adult counselors.

Young women who have demonstrated their own success in recovery from addiction are among the most credible resources to confront this growing problem. Second Growth has trained a select group of young women in recovery to serve as role models in reaching out to assist middle and high school-aged girls who have already found some trouble with substances. Momentum mentors serve as a coach, sounding board, and advocate for middle and high school girls in weekly individual meetings and monthly group events. For a function of education and outreach, Second Growth’s group of mentors is also available to speak to Upper Valley middle and high school groups about their own journeys through the stormy seas of adolescence.

For information, contact, contact Linda Addante, (802) 295-9800

INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY COUNSELING

Second Growth works hard to deliver the best service that money can buy to many individuals who may not be able to afford to buy any service at all. We only have a limited number of available appointments for individual counseling because of our staff size. We are a first choice for many referral sources not because of affordability, but because of the unique style of our support. Second Growth has effectively served many who have not been helped elsewhere.

Unique to Second Growth’s style of service is our primary focus on engaging and retaining clients in a meaningful exchange that produces positive change in a brief intervention. We work to remove barriers that commonly prevent client access to services, offering uncommon flexibility regarding cost, schedule, and meeting place. Our professional staff meets with clients multiple times in the same week, or in extended sessions, when we need to help break the spell of hopelessness. With a special value placed on the immediate creation of emotional and physical safety, Second Growth maintains a client-centered service.

Second Growth uses a well-defined, but still flexible, framework for a six-session assessment process that promotes an honest dialogue between counselor and client. Especially helpful for resistant clients, this brief intervention can be an important first step in identifying their specific needs and building a personalized plan to address a range of self-destructive behaviors, which may include substance abuse, anger or violence, and other risky business.

Beyond the initial six-session engagement, Second Growth takes on a greater commitment with selected clients who have greater needs and a willingness to invest in the process of change. The emerging relationship between counselor and client can develop into a powerful therapeutic alliance that supports positive change.

We collaborate with the education, healthcare, social service, and legal systems to insure the well-being of our clients. When schedules allow, our staff members attend treatment team meetings, court hearings, special education meetings, and other important planning sessions in support of the best outcomes. Whenever possible, we work with parents as well as children to help families become healthier.

Our counseling services are supported by the Byrne Foundation, Upper Valley United Way, and contributions from clients and others. See also “Giving Back.”