Supportive Autonomy: Equipping Clients for Long-Term Success

In the unpredictable landscape of substance use and mental health treatment, providers often face systemic barriers including funding cuts, staffing shortages, and treatment disruptions. When these occur, how prepared are our patients and clients to sustain their recovery without immediate clinical support?

Too often, treatment focuses on engagement within care, but true recovery requires patients to navigate real-world challenges independently. This workshop introduces Supportive Autonomy, a practical approach where providers help clients build resilience, plan for disruptions, and strengthen recovery capital without compromising support.

This session is highly interactive, minimizing didactic teaching and maximizing hands-on learning, and will include a live interview with a client in recovery. Participants will engage in real-world case studies, role-playing exercises, and practical skill-building activities to integrate autonomy-supportive strategies into their daily practice.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Define Supportive Autonomy and its role in sustainable recovery.
• Identify common barriers that lead to treatment disengagement and relapse.
• Develop emergency planning strategies for clients to handle disruptions in care.
• Apply autonomy-supportive techniques in substance use and mental health settings.
• Strengthen recovery capital to ensure long-term stability outside of treatment.
• Practice motivational engagement strategies that foster self-efficacy instead of dependence on providers.

This free in-person event is sponsored by Maine Township's MaineStay Youth & Family Services and Chicago Behavioral Hospital. It is appropriate for social service professionals and includes 2.0 free CE clock hours for social workers, professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, and nurses. Continental breakfast will be available from 8:30-9:00 am. Advance registration is requested as seating for this event is limited.

Attendees are encouraged to bring personal hygiene products (soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, etc.), paper products, or diapers to donate to the Maine Township Food Pantry.

Jamelia Hand, MHS, CADC, CODP I is a national expert in Substance Use Disorder treatment, Mental Health, and Re-Entry, with 20+ years of experience across public, private, nonprofit, and government sectors. She has led initiatives in treatment, compliance, harm reduction, recovery equity, and patient engagement at the state and national levels.

As President-Elect of the Illinois Association for Addiction Professionals, a stakeholder board member of NIDA’s Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN), and an advisory board member for SAMHSA’s Great Lakes Addiction Technology Transfer Center, Jamelia brings deep expertise in clinical best practices, policy, and workforce development.

She is the founder of Vantage Clinical Consulting and the creator of Supportive Autonomy, a groundbreaking approach to helping providers empower patients beyond structured care.

This program is recognized by IDFPR as providing CE clock hours for LPC/LCPC and LSW/LCSW under license number 159.001334, LMFT under license number 168.000223, LCP under license number 268.000070, and RN/LPN/APN under license number 236.000127.

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