My Work
Over recent months I've struggled to categorise what I do for a living and have tended to berate myself for my lack of clarity, my seeming inability to define myself in a commercially understandable way. When I stop and think about it much of my struggle relates to the continually changing nature of the roles I have occupied over the last decade. In short, my career is still growing. With this in mind, I'm able to accept that not being able to provide a definitive answer is a good thing because as long as my work has a pulse it will continue to cover new ground and face new exciting challenges. True definition, I suspect, is only possible in death. So, here goes...
I trained as an addictions counsellor in 1997 after various stints as a drug worker or project worker at needle exchanges and a number of residential projects with different ideologies. In 1997 I began working in prisons for RAPt (rehabilitation of addicted prisoners trust) and moved from senior counsellor to managing and developing new programmes. I took redundancy in 2002 at the end of a contract to provide 12 step treatment to young offenders in Reading prison (HMYOI) then ended up returning as a freelance counsellor/treatment consultant to work for RAPt in Aylesbury HMYOI in July of that same year. By this time I'd realised that the 12 step adult programme we used needed to be modified if young people were to derive maximum benefit from it, especially in a remand prison like Reading where there were no guarantees that you would have an inmate for the 12 weeks stipulated as being essential to programme effectiveness.
I realised, then, that any intervention, even if it was simply a 2 hour initial assessment interview, concluding with a few self-help group numbers and a direction towards further professional help, could provide the client with an invaluable opportunity for permanent life-enhancing change.
(I'm realising as I write this that it's going to take longer than I intially thought so I'm going to finish here for now and add more later)
Next episode... Synergy, the growing realisation of the healing power of the therapeutic container above, beyond and within the recognised goals of treatment
I trained as an addictions counsellor in 1997 after various stints as a drug worker or project worker at needle exchanges and a number of residential projects with different ideologies. In 1997 I began working in prisons for RAPt (rehabilitation of addicted prisoners trust) and moved from senior counsellor to managing and developing new programmes. I took redundancy in 2002 at the end of a contract to provide 12 step treatment to young offenders in Reading prison (HMYOI) then ended up returning as a freelance counsellor/treatment consultant to work for RAPt in Aylesbury HMYOI in July of that same year. By this time I'd realised that the 12 step adult programme we used needed to be modified if young people were to derive maximum benefit from it, especially in a remand prison like Reading where there were no guarantees that you would have an inmate for the 12 weeks stipulated as being essential to programme effectiveness.
I realised, then, that any intervention, even if it was simply a 2 hour initial assessment interview, concluding with a few self-help group numbers and a direction towards further professional help, could provide the client with an invaluable opportunity for permanent life-enhancing change.
(I'm realising as I write this that it's going to take longer than I intially thought so I'm going to finish here for now and add more later)
Next episode... Synergy, the growing realisation of the healing power of the therapeutic container above, beyond and within the recognised goals of treatment
posted by Nick Mercer at
8:35 pm
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