Community Colleges: The Next Frontier of Recovery Support at Institutions of Higher Education

In 2016, TYR could identify only six community colleges offering recovery support programs and services. Based on this finding, TYR identified a need for pilot programs to better understand programmatic models that may be effective for supporting students in recovery at community colleges. TYR’s Bridging the Gap grant program supports these pilot programs and is intended to act as a catalyst for building capacity for recovery support on community college campuses across the U.S. The goal of the program is two-fold; first, to help more 2-year institutions initiate recovery support programs and services and second, to study what programs and services are viewed as helpful and useful to students in recovery so that best practices can be shared as the field develops. This session provided a recap of TYR’s 2016 research, observations from Year 1 of the grant program, and a discussion on survey responses on institutional attitudes and student engagement in recovery support on 2-year campuses.