2025 Women’s Recovery Conference: Creating Connections and Transforming Isolation

The 2025 Women’s Recovery Conference offers up to 16 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 held in an online format, with full Livestream coverage. Live attendance is required to receive professional credit.

During the past decade, we have had greater turnout than ever for this vital conference. In response to the natural disaster created by hurricane Helene, and the current economic environment, we are significantly reducing fees for 2025 Women’s Recovery Conference. MAHEC is sincerely striving to support the Western North Carolina community at this time of need and to accommodate more individuals who otherwise would not be able to attend. In 2025, the conference will be held on a Livestream only platform, so that speakers nor attendees will need to physically travel to the disaster area.

In a further effort to accommodate strained clinical work schedules and challenges with travel and lodging, MAHEC is offering one-day, two-day, and three-day options; all of which may be accessed via WebEx Livestream with direct access to presenters. This allows MAHEC to provide mental health credits which are classified the same as in-person, “live” training as they receive vital North Carolina updates to inform care.

This is the 39^th year of the Women’s Recovery Conference, where gender-responsive care which focuses on the needs of women in recovery and their families, is exclusively presented. The Preconference on Wednesday, May 7^th includes four distinct half-day topics as well as an all-day Motivational Interviewing (MI) session, allowing for even greater registration choices.

The main conference day on May 8^th 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 9^th, with an introductive North Carolina State of the State Address by the new DHHS MH/DD/SAS Women’s Services Coordinator and an in-depth presentation by Dr. Elisabeth Johnson. Strategies for helping women in recovery foster and maintain community connection are embedded within this vital two-part session, to optimize available resources. Evidence-based strategies to promote hope, health, and healing are shared, as we continue to live though an unprecedented time of change, intertwining public and social health related crises. Strategies for coping with women’s health challenges 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.

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. More than ever, community connection, solidarity and accurate information are vital in providing a solid foundation for sustained recovery. The entire conference emphasizes culturally appropriate care, the fostering of strong communities, and the enhancement of psychological and physiological support for women in recovery, including perinatal, and maternal care.

Conference Objectives

At the 2025 Women’s Recovery Conference: Creating Connections and Transforming Isolation, 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. 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
10. Describe treatment approaches which foster resilience, build trust, and increase commitment to individualized therapeutic goals of women in recovery, while optimizing health outcomes
11. Provide information on healthy styles of communication which break co-dependent patterns
12. Provide skills on how to break old patterns which no longer serve the needs recovering women, utilizing the “Power of 20”
13. Introduce Motivational Interviewing skills to promote motivation and adherence to recovery goals
14. Explain how to obtain access to community resources that sustain gender-responsive recovery
15. Demonstrate a commitment to honor diversity, celebrate individuality, promote authenticity, and foster genuine collaboration
16. Provide current information on gender-responsive ethics, infectious disease prevention, provider supervision, and optimization of spiritual, physical, and emotional health in recovery
17. Provide information on clinical supervision relevant to providers working with women in recovery
18. Introduce a time-tested Recovery Community Center model to foster healthy lifestyle and communication relevant to women in recovery and their families

We hope to see you on Livestream in May!