What is CRAFT?
Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) has a 35 year old track record of treatment and recovery help for both the substance user and those who love them.
Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) is a peer-facilitated skills-based program for family members and other Concerned Significant Others (CSOs) who have someone close to them with a substance use disorder. It helps us cope with the impact of addiction and understand how it has changed our lives. At the same time, CRAFT strategically addresses our loved one’s resistance to change.
It is a non-confrontational approach that uses scientifically validated behavioral and motivational principles to reduce our loved one’s substance use and to encourage him or her to seek treatment.
Providing tools and instructions that you can use within your own home and family to change your interactions with our loved ones is the focus of CRAFT. These skills will become essential as you navigate and maintain a positive trajectory for all of your family members over the long journey of your struggling loved one’s recovery.
CRAFT is not a quick fix, but rather an approach that can benefit both individuals struggling with substance use and their families in the short and long terms with a comprehensive plan of action and a more hopeful compassionate view.
CRAFT is Supported by Scientific Evidence
Dr. Robert J. Meyers and Dr. Jane Ellen Smith of the University of New Mexico developed the CRAFT program and have conducted rigorous studies on its effectiveness for more than 35 years. They have compared it to the respective strategies of Al-Anon (a 12-step approach) and traditional interventions based in the Johnson method, in which family members and friends confront their loved one during a surprise meeting. CRAFT was more successful in engaging individuals in treatment and decreasing their substance use. In multiple studies across a range of substances and settings, CRAFT engaged an average 7 out of 10 reluctant loved ones in treatment. (Center for Motivation and Change)
Kristin and John Garbett, CRAFT Connect’s founding partners, are Certified CRAFT Providers and are among the less than 60 in the world who have earned this certification.
How CRAFT helps you and your loved one
Reduces harmful substance use
CRAFT work through CSOs to help change their loved one’s environment such that a non-substance using lifestyle is more rewarding than one focused on using alcohol or other drugs.
Empowers you to influence change and trains you in behavior change and coping skills
With CRAFT you move on your own time and at your own pace, deciding when and how to make changes within your home and family. You share your new behavior change and coping skills with your loved one’s support team.
Engages your loved one into treatment
CRAFT produces three times more patient engagement than Al-Anon/Nar-Anon, twice the engagement of the Johnson Institute intervention and four times that of 12 Step programs.
Overall, family members and CSOs encouraged approximately two-thirds of their loved ones to attend treatment, typically after four to six CRAFT sessions.
Improves your and your family functioning regardless of your loved one’s treatment decisions
Clinical trials have shown that when family members engage their loved ones using these positive, supportive, non-confrontational techniques, not only do they find ways to get their loved one into treatment, but the wellbeing of family members themselves increases.
Family members report significant reductions in anger, anxiety, depression and negative physical symptoms using CRAFT. Research shows that family members benefit emotionally even if their loved one does not enter treatment.
As a CRAFT Connect Family Support Member, you have access to the complete online curriculum that includes these topics:
· Functional analysis of your loved one’s substance use behavior
· Interpersonal violence precautions
· Communication skills
· Use of positive reinforcement
· Natural consequences for using substances
· Enhancing your happiness
· Invitation to treatment
Science and Kindness
Dr. Robert J. Meyers, a developer of CRAFT, explains that it is based on the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA) of using both science and kindness.