Developing a collegiate recovery program from the ground up: identifying priorities, promoting collaboration, assessing needs, and offering recommendations

Addiction in its many forms is a pervasive public health challenge that afflicts millions of people. With adolescence identified as the at-risk period for developing substance use disorders (SUDs), and young adults in the U.S. steadily demonstrating the highest SUD prevalence rates among individuals aged 12 and older, providing supports to college-aged youth in recovery or recovery curious is critical to promoting positive social, health, and academic outcomes. Collegiate Recovery Programs (CRP) are proliferating across the nation as a valuable campus resource for students in recovery from SUDs and process addictions. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview and first-person account of developing a CRP at a 4-year institution of higher education in the U.S., over the course of one year, through the lens of a CRP co-director. Program development, particularly in a space like CRPs where no one “gold standard” model exists, and individualizing programming to campus culture is key, is a time and resource-intensive process that evolves over time. Materials created to support program development are included and recommendations emerging from this experience are discussed.