About The Tea
The Treatment Effectiveness Assessment (TEA) was developed by Dr. Walter Ling and colleagues at UCLA to measure patients’ progress in treatment for substance use disorders. The domains emerged from a consensus panel convened by the renowned Betty Ford Center for Rehabilitation, which concluded that recovery was “a voluntarily maintained lifestyle characterized by sobriety, personal health, and citizenship” (Betty Ford Institute Consensus Panel, 2007; p. 222). A critical feature of the TEA is that it allows the patients themselves to assign their own “weights” to the conditions, perceptions, and actions that constitute these four components of recovery. This is consistent with another conclusion of the Betty Ford consensus panel—“Individuals who are ‘in recovery’ know what it means to them and how important it is in their life. They do not need a formal definition.” (p. 221). The TEA is short, easy to use, and free. It is our hope that by reducing barriers to standardized assessment of SUD treatment and progress in recovery, comparable data can be collected across clinical and research settings. Ultimately, this will lead to a better understanding of how treatments work, and a knowledge based of patient-centered input on the the recovery process overall.
Reference:
[Betty Ford Institute Consensus Panel (2007). What is recovery? A working definition from the Betty Ford Institute. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 33, 221-228.]