Individuals in recovery are particularly susceptible to relapse during early stages of recovery. This increased risk is due, in part, to financial stress (e.g., debt, poor credit, limited employment opportunities) that people in recovery from SUD often encounter. The existing paradigm for treating addiction has proven woefully inadequate, as people with opioid addiction require an average of seven treatments to achieve sustained recovery and still exhibit relapse rates of about 40 to 60%. Prior to the development of Recovering Your Finances, the inclusion of financial education and soft skills development was often nonexistent (or only marginally included) in recovery efforts.

Recovering Your Finances (RYF) uses financial education training to expand the capacity of recovery centers and others who work with individuals in recovery, including Family and Consumer Sciences professionals, thereby reducing the likelihood of relapse at the microlevel while reinforcing macrolevel benefits. RYF is a comprehensive personal finance curriculum specifically designed for individuals in substance use disorder (SUD) recovery. This research-based curriculum was developed as an FCS Extension educational intervention to improve the financial capacity of individuals in recovery, thereby reducing factors that lead to relapse (e.g., financial stress).

The RYF curriculum includes 8 units covering topics including spending behaviors, budgeting, credit, credit history, establishing financial priorities, banking, earnings, and savings. Each unit includes a facilitator guide, a publication, activities to reinforce learning, an evaluation, and marketing tools. RYF is tailored to meet the unique needs of the intended audience. Additionally, because RYF is designed to be implemented in facilities where individuals in early recovery may gather (e.g., recovery centers, jails, community support centers), it can be taught using little technology, it does not require internet, it can conform to facility safety and security standards, and the implementation cost is low. The curriculum is available to professionals who complete our train-the-trainer program (both internal to Kentucky CES and external partners through MOU).

This eight-session workshop series was developed as part of a USDA Rural Community Development Incentive (RCDI) grant, with further expansion made possible by a SAMHSA Rural Opioid Technical Assistance (ROTA) grant. In September 2022, the team was awarded a Rural Health Safety Education (RHSE) grant through USDA-NIFA to combine and scale Addiction 101 and Recovering Your Finances to state and national audiences in through the web-based training, PROFIT (Promoting Recovery Online through Financial Instruction and addiction Training). PROFIT will partner with the Kentucky Office of Rural Health to train community healthcare professionals (in addition to Extension and other community-based educators) to deliver RYF. KORH will assist the PROFIT team with identifying eligible professionals from KY Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC).

Initial training efforts, funded under the RCDI grant (2020), were focused on distributing the new curriculum via train-the-trainer workshops targeting four rural counties in Kentucky: Knox County, Leslie County, Bourbon County, and Boyd County. The training was for individuals in those counties who work with the substance use community, primarily treatment or recovery center staff, healthcare staff, and substance use treatment professionals (e.g., drug rehabilitation counselors, faith-community leaders, mental health professionals, medical healthcare providers), as well as FCS Extension agents. The Kentucky Board of Alcohol and Drug Counselors approved four hours of continuing education credits to these professionals trained.

Once the project was further expanded with funding from a SAMHSA-ROTA grant (2020-2021), the curriculum and train-the-trainer materials were provided to Family and Consumer Sciences Extension agents across Kentucky. A total of 112 professionals have been trained to date. With the expansion of the PROFIT funding, additional professional capacity trainings will be offered to deliver RYF beginning in 2023.

Program Results so far:

1. Up to 15 counties have utilized part of all of Recovering Your Finances between 2019-2022 (including the pilot).
2. Programming has reached between 78 (known) and 197 (KERS) participants (or more).
3. At least 51 known “live” class unit sessions – either in-person or virtual.
4. RYF had its own indicators in KERS starting in FY2022, and counties reported 20,000+ contacts in each category.
5. We have trained 77 Extension personnel (mostly FCS agents, and a few assistants). (Many of them have since left Extension.)
6. We have trained about 35 community members in about 7 counties. (None have shared data regarding program use since training.)
7. PROFIT modules were created in FY22-23 and will be released in 2023. A pilot group of 6 FCS agents was cultivated to provide inital feedback. 

Participant Quotes:

1. Calloway – The participants were asked the most significant thing they learned that they plan to apply as a results of these workshops. One participant noted specifically: 1) Check my credit report and make sure all info is correct; 2) Not open too many credit cards and do not overspend; 3) Make my payments on time.
2. Calloway – Since starting this class, one participant shared that she has paid off $2,500 in debt and had renegotiated her car. While she said listing all her debt and looking at everything was scary, she said she really enjoyed figuring out how to make financial amends and felt optimistic about her future.
3. Johnson County – “All the participants have reported enjoying the program; one talked about how excited she was to be able to teach the concepts to her daughter.” (Drug Court Coordinator)
4. Johnson County – During the program, one participant opened a savings account, one obtained credit scores with intention to improve them.