GSF 202: Family & Friends Training

Family & Friends

THANK YOU you for your interest in bringing a SMART Recovery Family & Friends (F&F) group meeting to your area! You'll be providing a helpful and valuable service to the family and friends of individuals with an addictive behavior.

Upon completing this additional “add-on” training to the prerequisite GSF 201: Facilitator Training course, you’ll be able to provide a Family & Friends meeting for "Concerned Significant Others" (CSO) to address the specific issues encountered when a friend or family member tries to reach out and help a loved one affected by addiction.

The SMART Recovery tools have been re­worked for CSO's, and can be just as helpful to them as to those dealing with an addictive behavior. We've also incorporated the principles of CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) into our Family & Friends program.

CRAFT is an evidence-based approach which studies have shown to be more effective than Al-Anon or addiction interventions for getting individuals into treatment for their addictive behavior. Even if the individual does not enter treatment, average substance use decreases by approximately half, resulting in a substantial positive change for the family and a foundation for making further change later.

Family & Friends meetings share SMART Recovery tools which can be implemented by CSOs to help with emotional upsets, effective communication methods when dealing with loved ones, and more. Techniques employed within the CRAFT Program (Community Reinforcement Approach and Family Training) are shared for the benefit of meeting attendees.

The F&F group meetings will be a place CSOs can turn to achieve emotional and behavioral balance for themselves and provide:

  1. Support and education for the CSO; and

  2. Support and education for increasing the likelihood of recovery for their loved one with the addictive behavior.

Along with our SMART Recovery meetings, we expect our Family & Friends program to become a highly respected and major component of the recovery movement. Thank you again for joining us in making this program available in your community!

Registration

Ready to join us? There's a $40.00 (US) non-refundable registration fee to help cover some of the costs of providing the Family & Friends training.

The estimated course completion time of the training is 5 - 8 hours. There is a 180-day enrollment period to complete, which begins upon enrollment into the course.

University

IMPORTANT NOTE: Completion of the GSF 201: Facilitator Training is a prerequisite of this add-on training course. 

The Family & Friends "add-on" training is only an available offering for those who have previously completed the required Facilitator Training course. When registering, you will be required to provide the details (from your completion certificate) to verify your completion of the Facilitator training.

For those who have not previously completed the prerequisite Facilitator training, we have the GSF 203: Facilitator/Family & Friends Training "combo" course available for $129 (US).


Note: If you are located outside of the US or Canada, please refer to the SMART Recovery International website for information on reaching out to your country's affiliate for training information.


International Facilitator Training Links

Australia - SMART Recovery Facilitator Training

UK - SMART Recovery Facilitator Training

SMART Recovery International 


Last modified: Tuesday, 3 January 2023, 7:49 AM