CRC Advocacy & Professional Responsibility 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A recovery coach discovers a client is being denied housing due to their history of substance use disorder. What is the MOST appropriate advocacy action?
- Confront the landlord directly on the client's behalf without their consent
- Inform the client about fair housing laws and help them understand their rights (Correct answer)
- File a legal complaint on behalf of the client without consulting them
- Advise the client to conceal their recovery history from future landlords
Correct answer: Inform the client about fair housing laws and help them understand their rights
Advocacy begins with empowering clients with knowledge of their rights, allowing them to make informed decisions about next steps.
Question 2: Which of the following BEST describes the difference between a recovery coach and a licensed counselor?
- Recovery coaches can diagnose co-occurring disorders while counselors cannot
- Recovery coaches provide peer support and lived experience; counselors provide clinical treatment (Correct answer)
- Recovery coaches are required to maintain clinical case notes like counselors
- Recovery coaches and licensed counselors have identical scopes of practice
Correct answer: Recovery coaches provide peer support and lived experience; counselors provide clinical treatment
Recovery coaches draw on lived experience to provide peer support, which is distinct from the clinical treatment services offered by licensed counselors.
Question 3: When advocating for systemic change in recovery services, a recovery coach should PRIMARILY focus on:
- Influencing policy by sharing personal recovery narratives and community-level data (Correct answer)
- Lobbying legislators directly using their organization's funds
- Avoiding public statements to protect professional neutrality
- Only advocating within their immediate workplace
Correct answer: Influencing policy by sharing personal recovery narratives and community-level data
Recovery coaches most effectively contribute to systemic advocacy by sharing authentic recovery narratives and supporting data-driven community change.
Question 4: A recovery coach is asked by a supervisor to document false progress notes for a client to meet a program outcome quota. The coach should:
- Comply to maintain employment and support the client's continued enrollment
- Refuse and report the request through appropriate ethical or legal channels (Correct answer)
- Ask the client to sign off on false notes to share accountability
- Complete the false documentation but flag it internally later
Correct answer: Refuse and report the request through appropriate ethical or legal channels
Falsifying documentation is unethical and potentially illegal; recovery coaches must refuse and report such requests to protect client integrity and professional standards.
Question 5: Professional boundaries in recovery coaching are BEST maintained when the coach:
- Shares their personal phone number to be accessible 24/7 for clients in crisis
- Establishes clear role expectations and communication protocols at the start of the relationship (Correct answer)
- Develops a friendship with clients to build deeper trust
- Avoids setting limits so clients feel fully supported
Correct answer: Establishes clear role expectations and communication protocols at the start of the relationship
Clear role expectations and communication protocols established early protect both coach and client and define the professional nature of the relationship.
Question 6: A recovery coach notices signs of burnout in themselves, including emotional exhaustion and reduced empathy for clients. The FIRST step should be:
- Increase caseload to stay busy and distracted from negative feelings
- Seek supervision or peer support and implement a self-care plan (Correct answer)
- Immediately resign to avoid harming clients
- Continue working and address burnout after completing current client commitments
Correct answer: Seek supervision or peer support and implement a self-care plan
Seeking supervision and implementing self-care are critical first responses to burnout, protecting both the coach's wellbeing and the quality of client services.
Question 7: Under the principle of cultural humility, a recovery coach working with a client from a different background should:
- Apply standard recovery frameworks without modification since they are evidence-based
- Assume the client's culture aligns with mainstream recovery concepts
- Remain open to learning from the client about how their culture shapes their recovery (Correct answer)
- Defer all culturally specific questions to a cultural liaison and avoid discussing culture
Correct answer: Remain open to learning from the client about how their culture shapes their recovery
Cultural humility requires ongoing learning and openness, recognizing the client as the expert on their own cultural experiences and how those shape recovery.
CRC Advocacy & Professional Responsibility 2
A recovery coach discovers a client is being denied housing due to their history of substance use disorder.
What is the MOST appropriate advocacy action?