Overview
Program Goals
Program Philosophy
SLP Services
A Day in the Life of a SLP Client
Pattern of Treatment
Case Study
SLP Spreads Nationwide
Cultural Competency
Supportive Living Program (SLP) Staff
Contact Information

"CJCJ’s Supportive Living Program gave me an opportunity to begin to actively pursue a different lifestyle without alcohol, drugs, and criminal interests. THANKS CJCJ."

Overview
People leaving custody are often ill-prepared to confront the challenges of free society.  For many formerly incarcerated individuals, deficits in education, employment, life-skills, housing opportunities, and medical/mental health care contribute to a persistent extralegal lifestyle.

The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice’s (CJCJ) experience working with the offender population extends back to the agency’s founding in 1985.  In 1992, CJCJ established the Supportive Living Program (SLP) as a residential reentry program for parolees with histories of substance abuse.  SLP is part of the Bay Area (Parole) Services Network (BASN), funded by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to reduce the number of state parolees returning to prison for parole violations.  The San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH) has funded SLP since its inception in 1992, when SLP became the first program in the nation to utilize a Social Model Recovery approach for parolees with histories of substance abuse.

SLP provides drug and alcohol treatment services to 16 participants housed in 2 residential neighborhoods in San Francisco, California.  SLP operates 24 hours a day encouraging clients to partake in a treatment cycle of a minimum of 90 days.  Clients also receive up to 1 year of aftercare services. The Supportive Living Program is a state licensed and certified program by the CDADP California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, in Sacramento, Ca.
 
SLP’s staff is unique in that they themselves are formally incarcerated people, with over 40 years of experience working with offenders inside prisons and in the community.  Program staff initially use an addiction severity tool to assess client treatment.  Staff work with clients to develop an individualized treatment plan to address specific psychological and social needs.  Treatment plans often include participation in education, employment, vocational training, family reunification, mental health, post-release housing, and life skills training.  In addition to the direct services provided by SLP, clients are also linked to services provided by other public and private agencies with which CJCJ has developed formal memoranda of understanding.  Over the past 16 years SLP graduates have consistently shown higher rates of employment and lower rates of recidivism than clients in other more conventional residential reentry programs.

Program Goals
SLP’s over-arching goal is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and addiction on the target population by implementing successful interventions.  Simultaneously, SLP aims to reduce the level of recidivism of parolees who participate in the program.  To this end, our goals for each individual are to:

Program Philosophy
SLP is a 16-bed residential substance abuse treatment program based on a social model recovery modality.  Social model recovery programs focus on building a person’s intrinsic motivation to maintain a clean and sober lifestyle through personal growth, social interaction, and supportive networks.  Unlike traditional clinical approaches, social model recovery programs encourage and promote personal initiative and community involvement.  It is structured so that everyone gives and receives help regardless of their status in the program.  Self-determination is a key component of SLP.  Clients participate in all aspects of program decision-making.  The values of honesty, tolerance, willingness to try, and the emphasis on helping others all form the fundamental value base for the residential living environments.

At the heart of SLP’s service delivery lies the philosophy that, while every person is unique and capable of change, we all function within a broader social, economic, and cultural context that affects us as individuals.  SLP is grounded in the following concepts and principles:

1.Each person on parole is unique.  Each person has distinctive strengths and weaknesses and a personal history that has shaped their life.  This history involves both psychological and physiological elements that have shaped the individual.  While recognizing and acknowledging a person’s weaknesses, a person’s future success will be based on identifying and building upon their strengths.

2.Each person is part of a larger social, economic, and cultural context.  This fact requires a delicate balance of responsibilities wherein the social, economic, and cultural institutions must support the individual in order for the individual to adequately make his or her contribution to the broader society.  Crime is one of the symptoms of a serious imbalance in that relationship.

3.Individuals and institutions are capable of change.  SLP does not give up hope or efforts towards changing individuals or institutions.  Recognizing that the seeds for successful change may be sown over a long path of failure, SLP is committed to ongoing long-term work with both individuals and institutions.

4.Change is difficult and requires an unconditional commitment to treatment.  No one can predict with an acceptable degree of accuracy how another human being will behave or if and when he or she will be able to succeed where they have failed so many times before.  SLP’s philosophy emphasizes that the primary therapeutic relationship is between the individual and the program, rather than between the individual and a therapist.  In keeping with the social model, SLP staff share similar backgrounds as program participants and are not selected based solely on clinical training.  This emphasis on commonality rather than clinical preparation allows closer identification between clients and staff and facilitates the development of trust, support, and culturally competent service provision.

SLP Services
SLP takes special care in providing culturally relevant treatment services to program participants.  Clients receive at minimum, the following core services:

While all of these services are provided to each client, the detail of where and to what extent these services are best delivered depends on the individual needs of each participant.  SLP relies upon creating and monitoring individually written plans that begin with a complete assessment of the participant’s psychological needs.  No two plans are ever exactly alike.  SLP develops and utilizes many different mechanisms that help to outline the treatment plan, the client‘s participation, and the progress he is making towards his individualized treatment goals.  Treatment plans are reviewed, modified, updated, and discussed with clients on a weekly basis.

A Day in the Life of a SLP Client
Since SLP’s program design is based on an individualized treatment plan, every resident’s daily schedule is different.  A typical day for a SLP client might look like the following.

Pattern of Treatment
The following chart outlines a client’s typical pattern of progression through treatment.  To ensure clients obtain the support and services they need to remain free from substance abuse and to positively reintegrate into the community, program staff closely monitor client progress throughout and even after program completion.

Case Study

SLP Spreads Nationwide
In April 2006, SLP’s founder and current director, Abu Qadir Al-Amin traveled to Africa on behalf of the United Nations and the United States State Department to consult on the development of similar programs in developing African countries.  Mr. Al-Amin visited the Kenyan coastal area including Mombasa, Malindi, and other smaller coastal cities to lead religious leaders in the development of a community based response to the growing epidemic of heroin and other drug use.  Mr. Al-Amin spoke in Mosques and worked with rehabilitation centers and drop in centers to help them better understand how they can deliver prevention and treatment services to Muslim patients in a culturally competent manner, using a holistic approach that incorporates Islamic spiritual traditions.

SLP Director Abu Qadir Al-Amin was invited to help the people of Kenya.  Read his invitation letter below.

February 4, 2006

I am a State Department Regional Psychiatrist based at the US Embassy in Nairobi.  For the past 2 years I have been working with USAID Kenya, various Kenyan NGOs and the Ministry of Health to develop prevention and rehabilitation services to substance abusers who are at high risk for becoming infected with HIV.

One of the sites we are working in is the Kenyan coastal area including Mombasa, Malindi and other smaller coastal cities.  There are large populations of both injecting and non-injecting heroin users in these areas and the largest group of substance abusers are within the Muslim communities.

I have invited Mr. Al-Amin to visit Kenya in the immediate future to work with these Muslim communities.  Mr. Al-Amin is uniquely suited to provide us with assistance.  The fact that he is an Imam who is extremely well versed in the Qur'an, that he is an African American who has had years of experience rehabilitating substance abusers and that he is knowledgeable about and actively participates in the Millati Islami 12 step recovery program is an ideal combination for this work.  He will have a great deal of credibility among the Islamic community here.  Specifically he will be able to work directly with our Imams and other religious leaders to help educate them about addiction in an Islamic context.  Our plan is to have Mr. Al-Amin lead a series of workshops and to have the goal of generating concrete plans to have these religious leaders develop a community based response to this growing epidemic of heroin and other drug use.  We will also have him be speaking in Mosques and working with our rehabilitation centers and drop in centers in order for them to understand how they can deliver prevention and treatment services to Muslim patients with a holistic approach that incorporates Islamic spiritual traditions.

Sincerely,
Barrett Levine M.D.
American Embassy Nairobi

Cultural Competency
Based upon the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) standards that the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH) has adopted, CJCJ aims to provide all of our direct services in a culturally and linguistically competent manner.  CJCJ, in accordance with the agency’s mission statement, strives to provide culturally competent services to our target population on a daily basis.

CJCJ has developed policies and procedures to ensure such culturally and linguistically competent services are rendered regularly.  CJCJ is an experienced service provider with diverse ethnic, linguistic, sexual, and cultural targeted populations.  CJCJ’s equally diverse ethnic, linguistic, sexual, and culturally diverse staff and Board of Directors assist in the design and evaluation of our culturally and linguistically appropriate services.  CJCJ ensures the involvement of diverse populations through collaborative partnerships with other community programs who serve culturally and linguistically diverse populations, assuring CJCJ delivers the most culturally competent services feasible.

Supportive Living Program (SLP) Staff

Abu Qadir Al-Amin, Associate Director/Program Director
Ron Caracter
Frank Williams

Contact Information
To learn more about SLP, please contact:
Abu Qadir Al-Amin, Associate Director/Program Director
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
440 9th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel: (415) 621-5661 ext. 252
Fax: (415) 621-5466