Services
Mentoring
Gary Fedoroff has been working with high-risk teens for more than 13 years, in settings ranging from community centers to juvenile drug court. He worked as an Alcohol and Drug Intervention Specialist for the Novato (California) Unified School District and as a counselor and case manager for Bay Area Community Resources.
Dedicated to engaging adolescents in recovery through multiple approaches, Gary gives them the opportunity to challenge themselves physically and emotionally through outdoor and adventure therapy—including paddle boarding, surfing, ropes courses, wall climbing, and other activities that strengthen them at every level.
Understanding the struggles that young adolescents are experiencing helps to build rapport with children suffering from low self-esteem, bullying, academic struggles, and peer conflicts. The younger adolescent years are a crucial time for establishing a healthy peer group and connections in school.
In addition to setting individualized goals and skill building, Gary provides opportunities for adolescents to step outside of their comfort zone through experiential therapies. He is skilled at challenging the mind on a ropes course, utilizing yoga and meditation to calm the nerves, or learning a new skill at the skate park, providing adolescents with confidence-building opportunities and outside the box activities. We then take those experiences, challenges and successes that we walk through together and use them figuratively in our sessions together.
Services provided include support for the client in the following areas:
- Identifying triggers at home, school, and in peer groups
- Support in managing social media and triggers associated with it
- Discussion around maladaptive coping skills versus positive coping mechanisms
- Developing plans to manage stressful situations
- Developing achieveable goals aimed at helping the adolescent to build healthy connections
- Provide support and communication to families on how they can assist their child in managing stress or conflict
An initial meeting with parents is arranged to discuss the case, the concerns, and to determine what services would best fit the needs of the client. We review academic history, social dynamics and the family system. Reviewing the needs as a group allows us to ensure the entire family moves toward positive results.
Intervention & Transport
School-Based Services
Provides in school support services for teens struggling with substance abuse. Understanding how
Sober Coach & Recovery Care
Gary’s personal and professional experience allows him to understand the array of barriers that prevent addicts from defining, joining, and remaining in healthy environments. These barriers may be internal (low motivation or emotional, medical, mental, or spiritual problems). There may also be external barriers that prevent individuals from safely meeting their needs related to housing, employment, nutrition, socialization, and transportation.
In addition, Gary provides an invaluable service for those resistant to remaining abstinent from drugs and/or alcohol, but who must obey legal, medical, family or contractual obligations.
Working with other treatment professionals, he determines client needs, defines boundaries, and explores how community, family, and business supports can best be utilized to maintain ongoing recovery.
As a Sober Coach, Gary understands the relationships between these various barriers to a client’s recovery.
He collaborates to develop a clear plan of action to address barriers. Having a working knowledge of community resources and strong personal experience in growing beyond obstacles is key to achieve real results.
A key service component is matching the client with the best resource for their individual needs. Gary provides accountability for the client to follow through with all areas of the plan of action.
- If you're freshly out of treatment or detox, what are you supposed to do to protect the investment you have made in yourself?
- Structuring daily activities can be a lot harder than one might anticipate.
- Peace of mind, fun and happiness are hard to achieve in recovery without the necessary life skills and support. A Sober Coach helps you build a solid foundation.
- A Sober Coach helps support the individual in catching up on lost time and building up life skills that have been forgotten or never learned.
- Adolescents in early recovery benefit greatly from having a professional relationship outside of the 12-Step rooms. This is especially helpful when that someone is a Sober Coach who has been there and found a path back.
Each client sets weekly goals to fit his/her personal strengths and challenges. An empowerment approach is used to build self-esteem and confidence.
Gary works with individuals at all stages of recovery, whether leaving residential treatment, currently in sober living, in an outpatient/day-patient program, in your own home, or experiencing relapse.
Some cases require a few meetings each week, for a few hours at a time. Some cases require more hours, seven days per week. Frequency & length of sessions are evaluated monthly.
Meeting locations will vary depending on where the client is in recovery, and what the person is currently working on. In addition, the Sober Coach is on-call and available by phone 24 hours a day, 5 to 7 days a week. This service alone can help prevent relapses and supports individuals with crises that come up in between sessions.