Outpatient Treatment Program
Pathways Bermuda Recovery Services offers outpatient treatment for those who have either completed more intensive levels of care locally or abroad, or those who are locally based and seeking levels of care that may range from once a week individual or group counseling to multiple weekly individual and group sessions.
Please contact our office at 236-0893 or info@pathwaysbermuda.bm for details of service rates.
A donation to Pathways Bermuda will help change and save lives.
Proactive Interventions
The Pathways clinical team is trained and experienced to work with families, employers and co-workers or any other group that has identified they would like more information about when and how to intervene on an individual whose substance use is creating increasingly intolerable problems for those who care about them.
There is no one formula for successful interventions and our team meets with all individuals who want to be involved in an intervention to assess, collaborate, generate and implement a proactive intervention plan. Each case is treated on its own merits and there is no way to know how many sessions need to occur prior to the actual intervention phase. However, the first session is considered an initial introduction to meet, have a conversation about the circumstances and create an initial plan that includes projected sessions, timelines, action points and costs.
Comprehensive Assessment
Our clinical team recognizes the assessment process is a critical, two-way engagement between counselor and client aimed at determining the best possible treatment path for the client. The assessment process is designed to support each client to share information that guides our treatment team in collaborating with the client to determine treatment options. This is also a time whereupon the client is best served by obtaining information about our treatment team and processes to determine if this is where they want to receive treatment.
Similar to our Intervention service, the initial assessment session is considered a grace period in order for counselor and client to determine if one or more of the Pathways programs are a good fit for the client. Once a client has determined they would like to proceed in one or more of the programs, an initial care plan, commencing with Comprehensive Assessment, is generated, costs established and an agreement to proceed is established. Typically the assessment process takes up to 3 hours and may be spread over two sessions in close proximity. Clinical and medical circumstances usually determine timelines and action steps in this crucial phase.
Treatment Planning and Implementation
Following the completion of the assessment phase, counselor and client are ready to generate an initial treatment plan. Each treatment plan contains the following:
- Stated and agreed upon goals and objectives considered as primary and important in building a recovery base upon which to generate successive treatment plans.
- Progressive assignments and activities to be carried out by the client as part of making their way to stated goals and objectives.
- Individual and group counseling sessions to be attended over an identified period.
- Follow up appointments with complementary service providers and support resources.
- A plan review date.
Initial treatment plans will vary in terms of timelines and complexity depending upon what the client is experiencing and presenting. Similarly, costs for each client will vary and our team considers determining costs as an essential part of the treatment plan generation process. Pathways works with clients, government departments, other service providers and insurance companies to ensure that each client is afforded the highest levels of care in accordance with the realities of contemporary healthcare systems and individual resources. The topic of costs is expanded upon below.
Effective substance abuse treatment and related services involves managing many moving parts. Honoring this complexity and recognizing the diverse range of skill sets clients and their families may need to access, our team is trained to recognize when a referral to include the services of other agents or agencies is to be considered and these are typically identified in short order.
We recognize this as an essential part of case management and, in turn, as offering our clients the highest levels of care. Similarly, our intake process has been designed to identify any other agents or agencies that need to be informed and collaborated with and this includes insurance companies, government departments, employers and the like. Pathways is aimed at working with individuals and families to create resources for recovery and limit distractions to recovery and our referral and case management services have been designed to advance this position.
Our counselors work together to provide individual and group counseling. Individual and group counseling are informed by client treatment plans; this is where the therapeutic work happens.
Individual counseling is always aimed at progression, review and progression through an identified plan. At any given point counselor and client can identify where the therapeutic process is at and what the client is working on. Counseling sessions frequency will vary from client to client, phase to phase and may range from once a month to three or four times a week.
There are two types of group counseling:
- Psychoeducation – a less intensive form of group that is aimed at providing clients with useful information related to the recovery process. These types of groups are found in all three programs.
- Therapeutic – intensive, transformative takes place in these groups. The power of therapeutic groups is invaluable and arguably one of the most powerful and transformative experiences our clients will have during their treatment here.
Some research indicates that the longer an individual remains engaged in a formal treatment process, the more likely they are to experience long term abstinence from their self-identified, substance abuse and problematic behaviors. At Pathways we believe that the key to this particular hypothesis is progression. Our continuing care services are aimed at supporting clients to continue to discover, access and utilize resources that support client’s reaching short, medium and long – term goals and objectives.
As clients progress through the various levels of care, the continuing care planning process supplements and links treatment plans from one to the next. The aim is to keep clients formally engaged in the recovery process for longer periods of time by generating plans that road map the keys to long term abstinence with a focus on improving quality of life. Treatment Plans are focused on attending to therapeutic objectives and Continuing Care Plans are focused on connecting the treatment phases with a view to supporting longer – term work/life goals and objectives.
The Pathways Bermuda “Extended Care Program” is an eight-week program that includes evidenced–based assessment and treatment interventions including individualized treatment planning, daily psychoeducation classes, individual counseling, group counseling, referral service and case management. This program is designed for persons who have either completed more intensive levels of care locally or abroad, or those who are in recovery locally seeking more structured continuing care.
Our treatment philosophy is based on the belief that addiction affects the entire family and therefore the identified patient is the family system as a whole. The majority of clients presenting for the Outpatient Treatment Program will come from family environments that have been negatively impacted by substance abuse and related behaviors. Research indicates that treatment outcomes improve if one or more of the associated family members are formally engaged in the recovery process.
The Pathways Family Program has been designed to create opportunities for family members to participate in the recovery process. Based on the Family Intensive Therapeutic Intervention Negotiation (FITIN) Program, the Pathways Family Program has five phases:
An individual session aimed at identifying and gauging individual, family system, and broader system relationships, specifically family function and cohesion.
Pre-Mediation and Debriefing
This phase focuses on uncovering issues that family members care to discuss and encourage skills that will enhance outcomes. The purpose of Pre-mediation is to encourage a change in family patterns of interaction, enabling family members to move on to the negotiation process. This preparatory stage can not only set the ground work for enhanced family function in the mediation process but can additionally stabilize the home environment which can support earlier treatment engagement and insulate against early program dropout.
Therapeutic Family Mediation Process
Is designed to offer the therapeutic space towards encouraging cooperation and mutual trust, establishing a context in which family members can express their issues and gain a deeper understanding of one another’s challenges and to identify, clarify, and extend the number and variety of options towards the recovery process. Additionally, this process encourages family members’ motivation to change maladaptive emotional reactions and beliefs, and increase family alliance, trust, hope, and motivation for long-term abstinence.
Family Care Plan Development
At this stage the Addiction counselor and the Therapeutic Family practitioner will collaborate with the family to generate an after care plan that indicates agreed upon behavior change. The plan will typically include communication training, specific tasks and technical aids, self-care practices, during which family case management is guided by individualized family functional needs, and their interface with environmental constraints and resources.
Continuing Care for the family is based on establishing and reinforcing five main objectives:
- Engage and assist with family members/significant other debrief and therapeutic stabilization
- Educate family members/significant others regarding the family disease of (SUD) substance use disorder.
- Identify coping mechanisms that have been effective and ineffective and assist with the development of alternative skills to enhance family function.
- Develop insight into family systems, roles and enhance family connectedness
- Assist families in developing a recovery system of accountability and support – i.e. AA/NA, Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, and family therapy.