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Setting Goals

When patients enroll in ARMS and begin to address their substance-related problems, we enlist the help of their parents, school administrators and any mental health professionals they may be working with to improve all areas of their life and their overall health and wellbeing.

Getting young people to engage in the academic and social life at their school can help them begin to establish healthy behaviors to replace their substance use.

Teachers, school counselors and administrators can be an important part of this process because they play such an active role in the lives of young people and observe them interacting with their peers. Also, getting young people to engage in the academic and social life at their school can help them begin to establish healthy behaviors to replace their substance use.

Goal Setting and Recovery

At ARMS, our patients are assigned a Recovery Coach who helps them establish an individualized recovery plan that not only addresses their substance use but also teaches them goal setting strategies. The process of setting and striving for goals is more likely to succeed if it is reinforced at school.

Here are some tips for helping young people meet their personal and academic goals:

  • Remove the shame surrounding students’ substance use and past failures.
  • Encourage students to stop comparing themselves to others and set their own goals based on what they really want and are able to accomplish.
  • Help students identify obstacles, such as substance use, chronic tardiness and other behavioral issues, which may be contributing to their problems at school, and work with them to set goals to eliminate these obstacles.
  • Ask students to focus on how they want their lives to be, and how they can get there, rather than the mistakes they may have made in the past.
  • Identify activities they enjoy and help make these a part of their life.
  • Look for areas where they can pursue rewarding activities, such as getting an afterschool job, volunteering or joining an extracurricular activity.
  • Provide them with a safe place to voice their frustrations and support them to keep working towards their goals, even when they seem hard to achieve.
  • Acknowledge and reward the positive outcomes they are able to achieve.