Preventing Academic Failure and Substance Use Relapse Through Recovery High Schools

Introduction:

Recovery High Schools (RHSs) support adolescents recovering from substance use disorders (SUDs) by offering a full range of academic services while also providing structured environments that promote recovery. Based on prior descriptive  studies there is evidence RHSs are an effective preventive component of continuing care for adolescents with SUDs.  A critical question, is whether they are more cost effective than regular high schools in preventing relapse, facilitating academic achievement, and reducing dropout for students recovering from SUDs. This poster provides an overview of the methodology we are using to rigorously address this question under an R01 grant from NIDA..  

Specific aims of this research are:

1. To assess behavioral outcomes for RHS students (less alcohol and other drug use, fewer mental health symptoms, and less delinquent behavior) compared to similar recovering students who attend regular high schools.
2. To assess academic outcomes for RHS students (higher GPA, higher standardized test scores, better attendance, lower drop-out rates) compared to similar recovering students who attend regular high school.

Methods:

Students are being recruited from substance abuse treatment facilities over three years and followed for 12 months. A comparison group of students not attending RHS will be selected from this pool using propensity score techniques based on prior meta-analytic findings; hierarchical linear models that represent treatment providers as a blocking factor and account for nesting of students within schools will analyze the effects of attending a RHS.  A secondary comparison group using existing follow-up data from a large national sample (about 18,000) of adolescents will be selected and analyzed with similar modeling.

Anticipated Results:

This project will produce a rich outcomes dataset for a large number of students with treated SUDs experiencing different high school environments post treatment.  The analysis will assess whether RHSs are more effective at improving the behavioral and academic outcomes of students recovering from SUDs relative to regular high schools. If shown to be equally or more effective, RHSs should continue to have an important role to play as part of the repertoire of preventive continuing care options in a community. The data may support RHSs expansion by the collaboration of treatment programs, school districts and/or state agencies responsible for the health, education and personal development of young people recovering from substance abuse.