Women's Recovery Conference 2024

2024 Women’s Recovery Conference: Finding Balance Amid Constant Change

The 2024 Women’s Recovery Conference offers up to 15.5 credit hours with a variety of credit options. The conference is designed for those working in substance abuse, mental health, psychology, criminal justice, human services, and other health care professions. The 2024 conference will be conveniently held in a hybrid format, with limited on-site seating and full livestream coverage. Live attendance, whether on-site or via WebEx, is required to receive professional credit.

One-day, two-day, and three-day options are available, with options for “Thursday Only” registration, “Friday Only” registration, or “Wednesday Preconference Only” registration. The event is designed with both live and full livestream coverage and direct online access to presenters, allowing for the provision of mental health credits which are classified the same as “in-person.” The livestream format also serves to assist practitioners who are unable to get away from their practice and who need to receive vital North Carolina updates to inform care.

This is the 38th year of the Women’s Recovery Conference, where gender-responsive care, focusing on the needs of women in recovery and their families, is exclusively presented. The Preconference on Wednesday, May 1st includes four distinct half-day topics, and the main conference day on Thursday, May 2nd provides gender-responsive care topics addressing care needs relevant not just for North Carolina (NC), but also across the United States. A special two-part presentation opens the day on Friday, May 3rd, with Starleen Scott-Robbins and Dr. Hendrée Jones providing information on NC legislative updates, as well as offering evidence-based strategies to promote hope, health, and healing as we continue to live though an unprecedented time of change, intertwining public and social health related crises.

Strategies for coping with constant change are embedded within this vital two-part session, designed to enhance the lives of both practitioners and the women whom they serve, strengthening recovery and laying a firm foundation for lifelong growth and positive transformation. Information on optimizing outcomes for women, including those who are pregnant or with families in North Carolina, will be provided, with a primary focus on the provision of compassionate care.

The entire conference is designed to provide tools that help heal and empower women in recovery, foster stress resilience in a time of unprecedented change, promote collaboration, build trust, and maintain clinical excellence. In the ever-changing environment of caregiving, this is key information all providers must know to overcome current challenges, improve client outcomes, and to promote overall women’s health through sustained recovery. Fresh, gender-responsive approaches are taken on mandatory topics such as supervision, ethics, HIV, STIs, and bloodborne pathogens. The conference also offers a choice of innovative care modalities that frontline providers may implement to motivate and empower women, while optimizing balance on the inevitably precarious path of recovery. Information is offered on rewiring the female brain for recovery, medications for opioid use disorder, strategies for harm reduction, and reduction of unintentional self-sabotage. This conference emphasizes culturally-appropriate care, the fostering of strong communities, and the enhancement of physiological, perinatal, and maternal support for women in recovery.

Please note that all session times listed below are in Eastern Standard.

The Preconference on May 1st begins at 9:00 am and ends at 4:30 pm, offering opportunities for both new and advanced practitioners. In the morning, participants may register for either:

In the afternoon, they may register for either:

The 2024 Main Conference, on May 2nd and 3rd, opens at 9:00 am on Thursday, May 2nd, with a Keynote Speech by Kimberly Yonkers, MD titled, “Pregnancy and After Delivery: A Challenging Time of Change.”

The Main Conference features a variety of vital topics nestled into two parallel tracks, both following the opening keynote presentation.

Track One on Thursday, May 2nd features two relevant sessions:

Track Two, on Thursday, May 2nd, is a jam-packed 4.0-hour track inspired by DHHS MH/DD/SAS, with four separate, highly-relevant topics:

Friday morning, May 3rd opens at 9:00 am with a formal North Carolina update by Starleen Scott-Robbins and Dr. Hendrée Jones, with everyone in attendance for presentations on:

The conference ends with a choice of two inspirational, concurrent plenary sessions, offering strategies that providers may immediately employ in their practices as they help women navigate recovery amid constant change, moving them forward on the path of adaptation and empowerment:

Both sessions highlight strategies for helping clients maintain balance in recovery, in spite of being surrounded by uncertainty, within a world of constant change.

Conference Objectives

At the 2024 conference, session content supports the following overarching conference goals:

  1. Provide concrete information, therapeutic insights, and treatment skills which may be applied to process substance use, behavioral addictions, and dependence on other substances
  2. Introduce skills to provide and ensure continuous, ethical care for women in recovery, within current workforce limitations
  3. Prepare providers with effective, evidence-based behavioral interventions to help women enter recovery, prevent return to use, sustain optimal health in long-term recovery, in benefit of women as well as their families
  4. Discuss strategies for closing major gaps in the current United States (US) care delivery system regarding treatment access for pregnant and parenting women and marginalized groups
  5. Update providers on current North Carolina policies and laws impacting women in recovery and their families
  6. Detail ways in which systems can be trauma-informed and culturally-sensitive
  7. Inform providers of current legislation surrounding reporting on and care of pregnant women
  8. List at least three evidence-based modalities of care that foster social, psychological, and physiological well-being in women’s recovery while reducing risk of return to use
  9. Present information on prevention and support relative to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
  10. Provide current research on women and effective medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD)
  11. Describe at least three effective evidence-based strategies which meet the gender-responsive needs of women with substance use disorders based on SAMHSA recommendations / research
  12. Describe treatment approaches which foster resilience, build trust, and increase commitment to individualized therapeutic goals of women in recovery, while optimizing health outcomes
  13. List at least three strategies for preventing self-sabotage in early recovery
  14. Introduce a “Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams Model” tested by Buncombe County, NC, that may be expanded for use in other geographical areas to improve outcomes for families
  15. List at least three time-tested strategies that promote healthy adaptation and maintain balance amid constant change, particularly effective for women in recovery
  16. Demonstrate a commitment to honor diversity, celebrate individuality, promote authenticity, and foster genuine collaboration
  17. Provide current information on gender-responsive ethics, infectious disease prevention, provider supervision, and optimization of spiritual, physical, and emotional health in recovery

with the support of

MAHEC
VAYA Health
NC Department of Health and Human Services