Brainstorming

During our monthly business meeting yesterday we had a brainstorming session. We were discussing ideas about how to retain clients, many who leave within a week or two of arrival.

One of the issues we've always encountered at TLC is that we're considered to be a "tough program." We ask much of those who come to our program. We enforce a curfew. We expect them to find work and pay service fees. We tell them to find a sponsor. We require them to attend 12 step meetings. We don't allow threats. We expect them to attend some 11 hours of meetings a week. We ask them to maintain the property and keep their living areas clean.

This is contrary to what many other halfway houses and recovery programs offer. While I don't believe in beating up the competition, many have few or no restrictions on movement or behavior. As long as the residents pay a weekly fee, the managers are pretty happy. Residents come and go pretty much as they please. They are not drug tested. One "religious" program in our area allows clients to use narcotic drugs on the property as long as they have a doctor's prescription. These kinds of programs, in my opinion, don't do much to help recovering addicts and alcoholics rebuild their lives.

However the "strict" requirements we have in our program really jibe with what people do in the larger community. While most citizens might not go to 12 step meetings, most of them work, take care of their property, and don’t break the law. But for some reason, many of our clients think were being pretty rough on them when we ask them to do the same thing that the typical citizen does.

Our managers came up with 20 or 30 different ideas of things we could do to maybe motivate clients to stay longer. While we started the meeting with the idea that there were no bad ideas, there were several interesting contributions. One was that we should try to do more to make clients feel more like they're part of the community. At one time we had a strong community at our Roosevelt property. The clients there enjoyed barbecues and movies on a regular basis, and engaged in other types of positive social activities. They made the newcomer feel like part of the community. While this was not a new idea, it was something we'd somehow gotten away from over the years.

We'll sort through the ideas to see if something will help with or retention. But maybe the best ideas are those that worked a few years back when we had a larger population.