FOCUS: Treatment
 

What does your business do? And what is unique about your health technology intervention?

We The Village gets families through addiction recovery.

What’s unique about our approach is that we get families through addiction recovery without working directly with the person in addiction. We simply work with one family member or friend motivated to influence their loved one’s substance use behavior. We train families in the leading evidence-based approach that has been proven to improve their loved one’s substance use disorder while improving their own mental health and well-being. In our coach-guided online course, families learn the complete skill-set needed to take actions that are proven to influence lasting positive change and get their family through addiction recovery. In addition to this, we also have a free online peer support community for families affected by addiction.

How do you help people with the disease of addiction or in response to mental health needs?

We train families to cause a systematic ripple effect of change.

We educate and coach concerned family members in new skills to apply in their life and relationships. By first deepening their understanding of addiction and the importance of their role in the relationship, they can then use their new skills to shift the addiction behavior systematically. This results in increased confidence and happiness for the family member, plus decreased substance use and heightened rates of treatment entry for substance use disorder.

How has the COVID19 pandemic impacted your work?

The COVID19 pandemic impacted our work in two key areas; quarantine created limitations on physical proximity and increased barriers to treatment entry. Addiction issues surfaced more prevalently for families confined under one roof, allowing the opportunity for those families to actively address it. While families isolated from one another found their ability to engage and impact change was significantly decreased and the adverse conditions potentially increased the severity of substance use. Treatment entry was more challenging than usual, with offline providers closing doors. On a general note, we found that families also have less to spend on services they desperately need.

What is the biggest challenge as a result?

Our biggest challenges are: 1. General Awareness: for the growing number of families who need support to be able to find us and 2. Decreased Spending Ability: being able to support and offer services to the many families in need who are under heightened financial strain during this time.

What else would you like the broader community to know?

Please Share Our Offerings:

We’ve recently completed a National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded Clinical Pilot Trial with our coach-guided course and are making it available to families beyond the pilot study now.

Additionally, we offer a free online family support community where members connect with peers to share their journeys and get their questions answered.

Find us at www.wethevillage.co and on Instagram.

We are actively seeking partnerships and connections with companies, organizations, and people passionate about this space - please reach out to [email protected]

We The Village is founded by Jane Macky

Having a loved one struggle with addiction for years, I struggled to support them and saw how inaccessible quality information was for the 1 in 7 American families affected. Most approaches have you sitting on the sidelines instead of actively participating in a solution-based way. I founded We The Village in 2018 to fill this gap for families to get through addiction recovery together.