CRAFT Connect Founders earn CRAFT Certified Clinician status
CRAFT Connect Founders earn CRAFT Certified Clinician status
Kristin and John Garbett, Founding Partners CRAFT Connect Family Support have completed the process of being certified as a CRAFT Certified Clinician. They are the only 2 individuals in the State of Utah, only 24 in the U.S. and are among the less than 60 in the world to earn this certification.
What is CRAFT
The Community Reinforcement Approach and Family Training (CRAFT) intervention is a scientifically based intervention designed to help concerned significant others (CSOs) to engage treatment-refusing substance abusers into treatment. This new intervention method was developed with the belief that since family members can, and do make important contribution in other areas of addiction treatment (i.e. family and couples therapy), that the CSO can play a powerful role in helping to engage the substance user who is in denial to submit to treatment. In addition, it is often the substance user who reports that family pressure or influence is the reason sought treatment. Also, CSOs who attend the CRAFT program also benefit by becoming more independent and reducing their depression, anxiety and anger symptoms even if their loved one does not enter treatment.
CRAFT uses an overall positive approach and steers clear of any confrontation. CRAFT is a culturally sensitive program that works with the client's mores and beliefs to develop an appropriate treatment plan. The program emphasizes learning new skills to cope with old problems. Some of the components include how to stay safety, outlining the context in which substance abusing behavior occurs, teaching CSOs how to use positive reinforcers (rewards) and how to let the substance user suffer the natural consequences for their using behavior.
No one has better information about the substance user's behavior patterns than a close family member. CRAFT teaches the CSO how to use this information in a motivational way to increase the chance of the substance user entering treatment. CRAFT research has shown that almost 7 out of 10 people who use the program get their substance user to attend treatment. CRAFT has been shown to be equally effective with Hispanic and Anglo families.
Robert J. Meyers, Ph.D., Developer of CRAFT
Dr. Meyers has been in the addiction field for 39 years with 23 of those years being at the University of New Mexico. He is currently the director of Robert J. Meyers, Ph.D. & Associates and a Research Associate Professor Emeritus in Psychology at the University of New Mexico's Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addiction. He has been involved in over a dozen clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health, including three CRAFT trials, Project Match and the Clinical Trials Network
Dr. Meyers began his work with the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA) in 1976. At that time he helped develop the first CRA outpatient procedures, which were used in the seminal study published by Dr. Nathan Azrin and colleagues in 1982. In the late 1990's Dr. Meyers helped design and evaluate the adolescent version of CRA (A-CRA). Dr. Meyers also developed the new innovative "intervention" program used to engage resistant substance abusers to enter treatment. This new intervention called Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT), an evidence-based protocol, has shown superior positive outcomes then traditional interventions styles in several randomized clinical trials. His CRAFT work has led Dr. Meyers and CRAFT to be one of the 14 featured segments of the Emmy Award-winning HBO Addiction series. Dr. Meyers has also been featured in Oprah magazine for his outstanding work using the Community Reinforcement Approach.
Dr. Meyers is an internationally known speaker and trainer who has delivered trainings in 31 states in the USA and in 15 countries around the world. Dr. Meyers has delivered trainings in 6 of the worlds 7 continents. He has published over 100 scientific articles or chapters and co-authored 5 books and one manual on addiction treatment, including "Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Pleading and Threatening" and "Motivating Substance Abusers to Enter Treatment: Working with Family Members". Several of his books are also available in Dutch, Finnish, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. Currently Dr. Meyers along with Dr. William Miller have published 2 interactive Journals through the Change Companies for returning war veterans called the Coming Home series.
(For more information, https://www.robertjmeyersphd.com/index.html)