Love First Family Lab®
Love First Family Lab is revolutionizing how treatment centers
engage families. Family Recovery Lab reimagines the approach to
family programs. The first innovation is launching the family’s
involvement on the first day of a loved one’s treatment. Families
continue to be engaged daily – for very short periods each day –
throughout the length of their loved one’s treatment and into early
recovery. Upon completing Family Recovery Lab, families will have
sophisticated recovery skills designed to rebuild a sense of belonging,
trust, and happiness within the family system, while supporting
emotional and chemical sobriety.
Love First Family Lab is delivered by an online learning management system (LMS). It uses a multimedia format offering micro- classes for family members (as one defines family) for each day their loved one is engaged in the treatment program. These classes require a short amount of time while offering meaningful, action-based learning experiences. Up to 10 learners, family and friends, can participate.
Family Recovery Lab is designed as a virtual program. to allow families to engage from the beginning of their loved one’s treatment, rather than being disengaged from the process. Disengagement leads to a false belief that. our loved ones need to do this on their own, which is a dangerous fallacy. Using an online LMS to deliver Love First Family Lab immediately upon a loved one’s admission and every day thereafter is a game changer. Families who also attend the on campus family program provided by a treatment center will arrive ready for an advanced level of learning.
Love First Family Lab removes the inherent restriction of how many people can attend family programming. It opens the door to this important and enlightening experience to up to 10 participants from each family. Ideally, family attendance would include extended family members: Grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, age-ready children, step-family members, life partners, close friends, and the list goes on. The greatest influence often comes from family members outside the nuclear family. For example, when facilitating family interventions, having eight or more friends and family members on the intervention team is not unusual. Ideally, the entire intervention team would attend the family program. But, to date, that hasn’t been possible. Love First Family Lab makes this possible.
Love First Family Lab is delivered by an online learning management system (LMS). It uses a multimedia format offering micro- classes for family members (as one defines family) for each day their loved one is engaged in the treatment program. These classes require a short amount of time while offering meaningful, action-based learning experiences. Up to 10 learners, family and friends, can participate.
Family Recovery Lab is designed as a virtual program. to allow families to engage from the beginning of their loved one’s treatment, rather than being disengaged from the process. Disengagement leads to a false belief that. our loved ones need to do this on their own, which is a dangerous fallacy. Using an online LMS to deliver Love First Family Lab immediately upon a loved one’s admission and every day thereafter is a game changer. Families who also attend the on campus family program provided by a treatment center will arrive ready for an advanced level of learning.
Love First Family Lab removes the inherent restriction of how many people can attend family programming. It opens the door to this important and enlightening experience to up to 10 participants from each family. Ideally, family attendance would include extended family members: Grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, age-ready children, step-family members, life partners, close friends, and the list goes on. The greatest influence often comes from family members outside the nuclear family. For example, when facilitating family interventions, having eight or more friends and family members on the intervention team is not unusual. Ideally, the entire intervention team would attend the family program. But, to date, that hasn’t been possible. Love First Family Lab makes this possible.
Family Recovery Lab: Design
Love First Family Lab is designed for people in crisis, often
experiencing distorted emotional responses caused by living with the
consequences of a loved one’s addiction. We need to go from “negative
brain” to positive brain”, so all of our brains start working better. Design
considerations include creating experiences that relax the learner: Plenty
of white space to provide breathing room, beautiful color photographs,
large text, short information chunks, videos for added interest, and
detailed drop-down menus to simplify the website. The goal of the LMS design is to light up the brain and create positive emotional responses
that draw learners into the site with a welcoming ambiance.
Emotional design is a science. As Dr. Don Norman, director of the Design Lab at the University of Southern California, San Diego points out, emotion is about acting and cognition is about thinking. Traditional family programs have designed primarily for cognition; Family Recovery Lab is designed primarily for emotion. The goal of engaging learners emotionally is to trigger positive action; emotion gets us ready to act. If what you are experiencing produces happiness, according to Norman, “things work better because you are more creative”. Happiness, according to Christina Hinton, CEO of Research Schools International, has a positive impact on learners in terms of motivation levels and achievements (Happy Students are Motivated Students, 2021). Increasing a sense of connection, which increases happiness, is simple according to Hinton: Design well-balanced challenges (not too difficult or too easy) or what is called the Zone of Proximal Development, encourage a sense of community and connection, and promote flourishing through gratitude, supporting others, and humor. Family Recovery Lab is forward focusing, moving entire family systems into recovery, developing a stronger sense of belonging, and opening up a space for happiness.
Emotional design is a science. As Dr. Don Norman, director of the Design Lab at the University of Southern California, San Diego points out, emotion is about acting and cognition is about thinking. Traditional family programs have designed primarily for cognition; Family Recovery Lab is designed primarily for emotion. The goal of engaging learners emotionally is to trigger positive action; emotion gets us ready to act. If what you are experiencing produces happiness, according to Norman, “things work better because you are more creative”. Happiness, according to Christina Hinton, CEO of Research Schools International, has a positive impact on learners in terms of motivation levels and achievements (Happy Students are Motivated Students, 2021). Increasing a sense of connection, which increases happiness, is simple according to Hinton: Design well-balanced challenges (not too difficult or too easy) or what is called the Zone of Proximal Development, encourage a sense of community and connection, and promote flourishing through gratitude, supporting others, and humor. Family Recovery Lab is forward focusing, moving entire family systems into recovery, developing a stronger sense of belonging, and opening up a space for happiness.
