Have I ever explained what I do?
I work in a residential 180 day inpatient treatment facility for addicted mamas and their children. We prioritize pregnant mamas so we get to have lots of brand new humans about. We have a balancing act with numbers - but generally capacity appears to be around 27 mamas and 25 or so children of varying ages. It all goes down in a HUGE Victorian brick mansion that is one of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen. My office is in the old carriage house and below my office is the daycare.
I am a primary counselor to 6-9 women at one time. I am responsible for their individual and group counseling and for the group's functioning out and about in the house. Or more accurately, I am responsible for making them responsible for each other. The house is like Hogwarts in that there are three groups and three counselors. The groups are called TLC, Genesis, and mine is named Unlimited.
From my limited experience, about 70-80% of clients are struggling with Meth and the rest are a combination of all other drugs and alcohol. Pills are on the rise as the drug of choice in our population at an alarming rate. I have had a very few clients who report their drug of choice as THC, but none of them have stayed longer than about 2 months in the program. One reason is that the other women don't take them very seriously - their drug of choice is not 'real'. I have had only one client who reported that she only used alcohol.
About 85% of my clients have CPS involvement, and many come to treatment without any children and then have to go through the process of earning their parental rights back. The most rewarding part of my job is getting the kids placed in the house. A number of women are in treatment as an alternative to prison, or are released from prison to the House as a chance to keep children they would otherwise lose due to incarceration. I do have clients who come without an authority placing them there, but none of them have graduated so far.
The doors do not lock, there is no security team. Anyone can leave at any time. If CPS has placed your child, you may walk out with them, but we're going to have to call the police. According to federal law, we cannot confirm or deny that any resident is in treatment. Not even to the police. Not even with a warrant. I find this incredibly satisfying. There is also - no television (except from 5-6 a.m., news and weekend movies), no sugar, very limited caffeine and no smoking.
For kids, the house is a safe and secure community to be in. We have an on-site therapeutic childcare with an incredibly educated staff. If your child is in childcare, at the end of the day the staff can tell you exactly what she ate, how much, how many meltdowns she had, and what kinds of emotional struggles she may be experiencing. They work on bonding, attachment, healing from trauma, socialization and are ever-aware ,for signs of developmental and medical difficulties. Mamas are required to spend time in childcare with their children and with staff observation. Mamas also meet with the Childcare Director and the Parenting Assistant for Parent Education - where they specifically set goals for their mothering and are helped to reach their goals.
Our theory of treatment is behavioral modification, always with an emphasis on why negative thoughts, feelings and actions feed into and perpetuate chaos, misery and addiction. The house functions much like a therapeutic community where residents are held accountable for every choice they make by their peers (and not by me or any other staff). Group therapy is where residents take The Chair weekly in order to receive criticism and praise from the women in their group in order to have clarity on how their actions affect the community, their kids and their emotions. Everyone in the house carries a small book that members will ask for in order to write positive or negative observations about each other. They read these 'carefronts' in The Chair.
Carefronts serve three main purposes - 1) To allow the residents to regulate themselves and eliminate a top-down authoritarian system. 2) To teach women who struggle with addiction the value and skill of boundaries, and to show them they have the right to tell others 'no' or 'I don't like that, don't do it' and 3) to make their own behaviors visible to them so they can decide whether or not other people see them as the person they want to be.
A new client is on Blackout for 2 weeks. She will get a phone call once for 20 minutes to tell people she is safe. After that, I will allow calls to children every night, but no other calls. She will be escorted by a member of the group every time she leaves the house. After two weeks she will move up in privileges and responsibilities and can use the phone every night for one 20 minute call, she will be allowed family visits - no husbands, boyfriends or significant others. Once she is in Phase 1 she is expected to escort new women, sponsor them in acclimating to the community and step up when needed to run the house. They also are expected to work communally to make sure that the children's needs are met and to negotiate non-exploitative relationships with the other women of the house to share childcare duties. The women run the house - from the kitchen to yard maintenance. We do have a cook, night staff and others, but the heavy work is done by residents.
Clients may choose to Phase up to 2. They receive still more privileges and responsibilities and are expected to be the brutally honest women in the house as well as the most compassionate. A few clients may Phase to 3 - privileges are broadened, as is freedom and contact with the outside community. In each phase, responsibility is increased, and the expectation of respect and honesty at all times is also increased.
Women will write and read their autobiography in Group around the 8th week. I am awed by this process and by the guts it takes to read your life story to others. The group then takes the elements of the auto and writes a treatment plan for the woman in group, while she is in The Chair. I type it up and she will spend the rest of her stay doing writing, art and exercises on the people, events, behaviors and traumas that group believes keep her stuck in addiction. I also assign all of my clients a packet of work called "Addicted to Misery" - which compares shitty relationships to addiction to substances. The number one thing I see in clients that sabotages their well being is the abusive and controlling relationships they all seem to have in common. The number two characteristic is having been raised by an addict (or two.) They 'process' these works in group and discuss, discuss, discuss. I love that we follow her life story, I love that the group writes her treatment plan.
The other component of my job is helping the women parent in a way that will heal the damage that separation or neglect may have done to their children. I also work with them to figure out HOW to parent, since so many were parented through abuse or neglect themselves. Many had to parent their own younger siblings, and are stuck in a mode of parenting invented by their pre-teen self to handle that situation. I am also the person who will call CPS if a mama is abusing her child or reports past abuse. I always offer to sit with them while they self-report and so far, they all take me up on it. This is not the best part of my job, but I sleep fine at night because I know that if I think CPS needs to be called, it definitely needs to happen. Every mama who has called CPS on herself has thanked me afterward, strangely. It is, believe it or not, empowering.
I cannot hold the children. This totally sucks. Mothers are 100% responsible for their children 100% of the time. If they need help, they are expected to form cooperative and healthy relationships with each other to get their children's needs met.
Many women leave (I had one leave last night), it is not the way for all addicted mamas. But when they do stay, it changes so much for them and their children. One of the things I love to do is to suggest to a woman that she take one week and just say 'no' to all requests on her time. No apologies, no excuses, just a simple 'no'. Every women who has tried it is converted to the power of setting boundaries.
My group are also all big fans of what I call The Unsendable Letter. It is what it sounds like. I tell them to write a letter with their actual true feelings toward someone key in their lives. Just pour it out on the page. No censorship, no guilt, no shame. (I do this a lot). And then they can decide what to do with it - send it, burn it, read it to me, read it to the group, shred it into confetti...just write it.
At the end of treatment, the successful graduate comes to group the last day and reads goodbye letters to everyone in group, and they read theirs to her. Everyone cries. I absolutely cry. I put a lot of thought and affection into my letters and I absolutely hold onto the ones I receive as proof I am in the right place doing the right thing.
Then, graduation, where every woman in the house and staff too give the departing mama a word that reminds them of her and the reason for it. She sits in The Chair one last time to hear all this and then she tells the story of her worst day ("the day I heard from my group that I was not doing my job as a mother"), the story of her best day ("the day my daughter was placed here and I knew we were a family again") and their words of advice ("the rules seem ridiculous, but they are there for a reason, just try it because it can change your life.")
It is like reality tv every day. But without the exploitation and condescension.
I totally love my job. Any questions?
I am a primary counselor to 6-9 women at one time. I am responsible for their individual and group counseling and for the group's functioning out and about in the house. Or more accurately, I am responsible for making them responsible for each other. The house is like Hogwarts in that there are three groups and three counselors. The groups are called TLC, Genesis, and mine is named Unlimited.
From my limited experience, about 70-80% of clients are struggling with Meth and the rest are a combination of all other drugs and alcohol. Pills are on the rise as the drug of choice in our population at an alarming rate. I have had a very few clients who report their drug of choice as THC, but none of them have stayed longer than about 2 months in the program. One reason is that the other women don't take them very seriously - their drug of choice is not 'real'. I have had only one client who reported that she only used alcohol.
About 85% of my clients have CPS involvement, and many come to treatment without any children and then have to go through the process of earning their parental rights back. The most rewarding part of my job is getting the kids placed in the house. A number of women are in treatment as an alternative to prison, or are released from prison to the House as a chance to keep children they would otherwise lose due to incarceration. I do have clients who come without an authority placing them there, but none of them have graduated so far.
The doors do not lock, there is no security team. Anyone can leave at any time. If CPS has placed your child, you may walk out with them, but we're going to have to call the police. According to federal law, we cannot confirm or deny that any resident is in treatment. Not even to the police. Not even with a warrant. I find this incredibly satisfying. There is also - no television (except from 5-6 a.m., news and weekend movies), no sugar, very limited caffeine and no smoking.
For kids, the house is a safe and secure community to be in. We have an on-site therapeutic childcare with an incredibly educated staff. If your child is in childcare, at the end of the day the staff can tell you exactly what she ate, how much, how many meltdowns she had, and what kinds of emotional struggles she may be experiencing. They work on bonding, attachment, healing from trauma, socialization and are ever-aware ,for signs of developmental and medical difficulties. Mamas are required to spend time in childcare with their children and with staff observation. Mamas also meet with the Childcare Director and the Parenting Assistant for Parent Education - where they specifically set goals for their mothering and are helped to reach their goals.
Our theory of treatment is behavioral modification, always with an emphasis on why negative thoughts, feelings and actions feed into and perpetuate chaos, misery and addiction. The house functions much like a therapeutic community where residents are held accountable for every choice they make by their peers (and not by me or any other staff). Group therapy is where residents take The Chair weekly in order to receive criticism and praise from the women in their group in order to have clarity on how their actions affect the community, their kids and their emotions. Everyone in the house carries a small book that members will ask for in order to write positive or negative observations about each other. They read these 'carefronts' in The Chair.
Carefronts serve three main purposes - 1) To allow the residents to regulate themselves and eliminate a top-down authoritarian system. 2) To teach women who struggle with addiction the value and skill of boundaries, and to show them they have the right to tell others 'no' or 'I don't like that, don't do it' and 3) to make their own behaviors visible to them so they can decide whether or not other people see them as the person they want to be.
A new client is on Blackout for 2 weeks. She will get a phone call once for 20 minutes to tell people she is safe. After that, I will allow calls to children every night, but no other calls. She will be escorted by a member of the group every time she leaves the house. After two weeks she will move up in privileges and responsibilities and can use the phone every night for one 20 minute call, she will be allowed family visits - no husbands, boyfriends or significant others. Once she is in Phase 1 she is expected to escort new women, sponsor them in acclimating to the community and step up when needed to run the house. They also are expected to work communally to make sure that the children's needs are met and to negotiate non-exploitative relationships with the other women of the house to share childcare duties. The women run the house - from the kitchen to yard maintenance. We do have a cook, night staff and others, but the heavy work is done by residents.
Clients may choose to Phase up to 2. They receive still more privileges and responsibilities and are expected to be the brutally honest women in the house as well as the most compassionate. A few clients may Phase to 3 - privileges are broadened, as is freedom and contact with the outside community. In each phase, responsibility is increased, and the expectation of respect and honesty at all times is also increased.
Women will write and read their autobiography in Group around the 8th week. I am awed by this process and by the guts it takes to read your life story to others. The group then takes the elements of the auto and writes a treatment plan for the woman in group, while she is in The Chair. I type it up and she will spend the rest of her stay doing writing, art and exercises on the people, events, behaviors and traumas that group believes keep her stuck in addiction. I also assign all of my clients a packet of work called "Addicted to Misery" - which compares shitty relationships to addiction to substances. The number one thing I see in clients that sabotages their well being is the abusive and controlling relationships they all seem to have in common. The number two characteristic is having been raised by an addict (or two.) They 'process' these works in group and discuss, discuss, discuss. I love that we follow her life story, I love that the group writes her treatment plan.
The other component of my job is helping the women parent in a way that will heal the damage that separation or neglect may have done to their children. I also work with them to figure out HOW to parent, since so many were parented through abuse or neglect themselves. Many had to parent their own younger siblings, and are stuck in a mode of parenting invented by their pre-teen self to handle that situation. I am also the person who will call CPS if a mama is abusing her child or reports past abuse. I always offer to sit with them while they self-report and so far, they all take me up on it. This is not the best part of my job, but I sleep fine at night because I know that if I think CPS needs to be called, it definitely needs to happen. Every mama who has called CPS on herself has thanked me afterward, strangely. It is, believe it or not, empowering.
I cannot hold the children. This totally sucks. Mothers are 100% responsible for their children 100% of the time. If they need help, they are expected to form cooperative and healthy relationships with each other to get their children's needs met.
Many women leave (I had one leave last night), it is not the way for all addicted mamas. But when they do stay, it changes so much for them and their children. One of the things I love to do is to suggest to a woman that she take one week and just say 'no' to all requests on her time. No apologies, no excuses, just a simple 'no'. Every women who has tried it is converted to the power of setting boundaries.
My group are also all big fans of what I call The Unsendable Letter. It is what it sounds like. I tell them to write a letter with their actual true feelings toward someone key in their lives. Just pour it out on the page. No censorship, no guilt, no shame. (I do this a lot). And then they can decide what to do with it - send it, burn it, read it to me, read it to the group, shred it into confetti...just write it.
At the end of treatment, the successful graduate comes to group the last day and reads goodbye letters to everyone in group, and they read theirs to her. Everyone cries. I absolutely cry. I put a lot of thought and affection into my letters and I absolutely hold onto the ones I receive as proof I am in the right place doing the right thing.
Then, graduation, where every woman in the house and staff too give the departing mama a word that reminds them of her and the reason for it. She sits in The Chair one last time to hear all this and then she tells the story of her worst day ("the day I heard from my group that I was not doing my job as a mother"), the story of her best day ("the day my daughter was placed here and I knew we were a family again") and their words of advice ("the rules seem ridiculous, but they are there for a reason, just try it because it can change your life.")
It is like reality tv every day. But without the exploitation and condescension.
I totally love my job. Any questions?