Medication

Some of our clients take medication for various emotional or psychological issues. Because TLC is a peer counseling program we don't have therapists and psychologists on our staff.  This sometimes makes it difficult to determine how to deal with clients who have these issues.

However, one standard we use is to decide whether the person is a danger to themselves or others in the program. For example, when a client is having auditory or visual hallucinations, we generally refer him or her to a hospital or psychiatric unit. Most of the time we find that these kinds of issues require an adjustment in the client's medication. Once that's completed we accept them back into the program.

Our experience with these clients has mostly been good. We've never had an incident of violence involving a client who's on psychiatric medication. In fact, a valued employee, who was with us for some 17 years, had a long history of serious depression. Other than going through mood swings once in a while - which were helped by an adjustment in his medications - he was one of our best employees.