Resident self-governance in social model recovery programs

Abstract

The current paper focuses on resident self-governance, in theory and in practice, in California social model recovery programs. Social model programs are derived from AA 12-step/12-tradition philosophy and have adopted the belief held in AA that persons in recovery must take responsibility for their own recovery, not just in speech but in action. Social model programs put this conviction into practice with formal mechanisms for resident self-governance that give residents opportunities for responsibility. This is considered vital practice for taking responsibility outside the relatively secure confines of the social model program. Resident self-governance is a distinctive feature of social model, and literature from social model leaders has emphasized the transfer of AA principles of egalitarian power-sharing and rotating leadership to a programmatic setting. How resident self-governance actually works, and how it is reconciled with a nonprofit parent agency that must maintain some hierarchy for purposes of efficiency and to satisfy legal and funder requirements, is explored through reference to the two social model programs that were studied in the Social Model Process Evaluation project.