By: MARTIN R. INFANTE
President, SELF
December 2006
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an excerpt of the paper Martin presented at the 23rd World Federation of Therapeutic Communities (WFTC) conference held in New York on September 1-5, 2006. It discusses the challenges TC’s face regarding the preservation of Professional Integrity in the work place. Martin is the Vice-Chairman of the Standards & Goals Committee of the WFTC Executive Council.
Professional Integrity
…In today’s world of drug rehabilitation and treatment, there exist numerous modes of intervention that have been developed over time and have provided hope to thousands of drug users worldwide. Perhaps the most important challenge that centers face is how to sustain professional integrity in the administration of their rehab program.
As with many other TC programs worldwide, we at SELF have become accustomed to training residents to run the program and eventually hiring those who demonstrate the requisite willingness and potential to become staff. As it has been said that the “addict knows the addict best”, he/she would be the best teacher and role model. We do know that TCs around the world have practiced this for years and, for all practical purposes, it has worked well for some time.
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