Ongoing Training & Support
Upon completion of your training and your registration as a SMART Recovery volunteer, in addition to the continued support available from the National Office staff and the Training Team, there are various other means of ongoing training and support opportunities we make available to our meeting facilitators and volunteers.
FAST Forward: SMART Meeting Management (SMM) These ongoing Facilitator Training & Support meetings take place every Monday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and Friday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time. If you are interested in furthering your skills in managing your meetings or smoothly handling any challenges you might encounter, these discussion meetings are for you. Discussion topics include difficult and sensitive issues that may arise in meetings, best practices and techniques in using the SMART tools, following meeting guidelines, creating an accepting and non-judgmental meeting environment, and how to "Do SMART Recovery". It’s also a place to brainstorm ideas and share information and resources.
FAST Forward: SMART Meeting Management (SMM) Teen/Young Adult If you facilitate Teen and/or Young Adult meetings, please join us once a month for our Teen and Young Adult focused SMART Meeting Management meeting. Working with young people is very rewarding and comes with unique challenges. The goal of our monthly SMM is to share these challenges, as well as strategies that can make the groups successful. The Teen and Young Adult SMM facilitators bring their experience facilitating SMART meetings for these age groups, and we want to hear from YOU about what has – or hasn’t – worked well with these age groups. The Teen and Young Adult SMM meetings take place on the 3rd Thursday of every month at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
FAST Forward: SMART For Volunteers (S4V) meetings take place on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern Time and is a 1-hour support meeting exclusively for SMART facilitators and volunteers. The purpose of the S4V meetings is to provide a SMART Recovery meeting for our facilitators and volunteers who may or may not have another support system available. It is a time to discuss your own personal issues, challenges and life struggles. All SMART Recovery facilitators and volunteers are invited to attend. Who is there, what is said and by whom is STRICTLY confidential.
FAST Forward: Get SMART FAST is a training support meeting divided into two parts. The meeting starts out with "SMART Recovery in Action", being an interactive role-play where a scenario is presented for discussion and the application of the SMART Recovery tools. The focus of the role-play is on how you'll utilize the SMART tools and apply what you're learning to help and support the person presenting the issue. After the role-play exercise, the remaining portion of the meeting will focus on "Leading an Authoritative SMART Recovery Meeting", being an open discussion and Q&A session where we'll discuss and address any questions and concerns you may have in moving forward with your SMART meeting plans.
Each "Get SMART FAST" meeting is scheduled for 60-minutes, taking place on the 1st Tuesday of every month at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time and another on the 3rd Thursday of every month at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Access information and details are found in the calendar and the Upcoming Events block within the training course.
SMARTCAL is a discussion group you can choose to subscribe to when submitting your Volunteer Registration Form. There, you can send one email that will go out to all participating SMART volunteers and facilitators and members of the Board of Directors, etc… everyone that is a part of the SMART Recovery organization who has subscribed to the group.
SMARTTxPro is a discussion group you can choose to subscribe to if you are a certified addiction treatment professional. Check the box when submitting your Volunteer Registration Form and begin to communicate with other treatment professionals serving SMART Recovery.
Facilitator’s Forum on the SROL Message Board, which has been set up as a means of communication and support for both our existing face-to-face and online meeting facilitators, as well as the “graduates” of our Training Program. This allows you to continue share your progress in getting your meetings up and running, and provides another venue in which you can get feedback and share thoughts, ideas, concerns, issues or problems encountered, etc. relating to your meetings.
NOTE: The ongoing training and support meetings take place utilizing the online Zoom meeting platform. Notices and access details for the meetings are posted in the SMARTCAL discussion group. The meeting times and dates are also listed in the Calendar of Events.