Examining the Effect of Recovery High Schools on Adolescents

HOUSTON - Sept. 4, 2018 - PRLog -- Recovery High Schools (RHS) are secondary schools designed to help youths struggling with substance use disorders.

RHS programs serve as an alternative to regular high schools and give students a chance at recovery from the environment where they were more likely to relapse.

In 1979, a program in Montgomery County, Maryland called the Phoenix School helped give way to the establishment of RHS programs.

"The growth of these schools was fairly slow through the 80s," said Dr. Andrew Finch, the co-founder of the Association of Recovery Schools (ARS) "It wasn't until the late 80s that you started to see lots of growth and most of that was in Minnesota."

The first official RHS program, Sobriety High of Minnesota, was created eight years later and closed in 2013 due to lack of funding.

"We have seen a pretty steady growth nationwide with the exception of the couple years right around the recession where you saw some reduction in the number of schools where specialty programs really took a hit in those years. But starting around 2012 and 2013, you started to see steady growth again. I think certainly communities have seen value in this approach, we have been seeing a lot more schools open."

Finch said that a RHS program usually starts as grassroot efforts by parents or educators and detailed the steps taken.

"They have to understand the market," he said. "They have to understand where the students would come from, what's the demand, is this something the local school district might fund, are there state dollars available. Oftentimes it involves an awful lot of education. They have to teach people what it is. They have to go to legislators and school boards to talk about it. Oftentimes, there is just a basic lack of awareness to start."

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