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DRINK & DRUGS NEWS :: Q&AYou ask the questions - you answer the questions. Please keep your answers coming, and feel free to email a new question. Thanks to this issue's respondents for their contributions. Question:I am currently employed by a large charity as a counsellor and
am looking to move jobs. I am considering moving to a private treatment
provider and would like to hear if any readers who have experience
of working for the private sector, as well as charity or statutory
sectors, have noticed a significant difference in attitudes and
working practices - or is delivering care the same whoever is providing
it? [Bryan, via email] Your replies...Hi Bryan I worked for a charitable organisation in my formative years as an addictions therapist. I did my counselling placement there and applied for a full-time post after many months of invaluable voluntary work. The secondary unit, which was part of the continuum of care offered, was a sub unit of a larger trust offering support to people with housing and mental health problems. It was tough work but created a solid grounding in the therapeutic interventions needed in an addiction treatment setting. People could stay up to a year and then graduate, if it was felt helpful, onto tertiary treatment/support. I moved across to the private sector in 2001, and the main difference immediately was facilities and resources. I'm not suggesting that the charitable service was ineffective or in any way clinically defective, but the collection of training, continued professional development, supervision, and internal opportunities just opened up. In turn, I believe this benefits the clients/patients because the clinical team are able to offer the best, most up-to-date research and evidence-based therapeutic interventions. In my experience, the service users in both arenas suffer from exactly the same issues and history. They may, on occasions, come from different demographics, but the stories are the same and the traumas and attachments issues are identical. If there is a shortcoming of the private sector, it is possibly of time. Length of stay is financially driven rather than clinically. Those coming through primary treatment on medical insurance can often only stay for 28 days with some daycare to follow. For some, maybe many, this is just not long enough to recover suitably enough to understand that they are suffering from a potentially life- threatening mental illness. That said, the company's treatment programme is intense and successful for many individuals, and with free aftercare for one year after discharge, it is often truly effective. After starting as a primary addiction therapist in 2001, I worked up to being senior therapist at, what I considered the most prestigious primary treatment facility in the UK, Farm Place. I was offered the chance to run Priory Healthcare's stand alone secondary unit two and a half years ago. The career path is yours for the making in the private sector I've found, but I owe my grounding in the treatment process to the charitable sector. Richard C Renson, manager at Coach House
Dear Bryan You have hit the nail on the head; as you say, delivering care is (or at least should be) the same whoever is providing it. In reality there are no hard and fast rules on how an organisation operates. In my 20 plus years working in the field I have been employed by all manner of organisations, from commercially driven private providers through to small charities and I am currently employed by a large local authority. Each one had their own systems in place, some of which were extremely efficient, some of which were downright awful. As a general rule of thumb, the larger the organisation the more layers of bureaucracy there are for you to wade through. The one thing I would recommend when you visit any new establishment where you intend to work, is to try and get a feel for the personality of your immediate managers and how dynamic and proactive they seem. If you work with the right people you can achieve anything, at any place. Best of luck! Arthur, via email
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