LADC/CADAC Eligible...????????

Over the course of the past several months, I have encountered this phrase more than once when inquiring about the counseling staff at various treatment facilties where I have interviewed for potential leadership positions.

Hmmm, something seems amiss to me here. I have yet to interview at facilities where they used such phrases as, "LICSW" or "LMHC" eligible.

So why with addiction counselors is it o.k. that they are 'eligible' and not LADC's or CADAC's before being granted a position?

Up until June 25th of this year I was working at the Somerville Hospital ATU where all of us on the counseling staff were LADC's and CADAC's. As a matter of fact, several of us had Masters degrees in counseling as well.

As a member of the Consumer Advisory Board at the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, at the Department of Public Health, I broached this topic several months ago. Essentially, the answer was this is the way it has always been done. In part, I can understand this from the origin of addiction counselors. Usually, those entering this field were in recovery (or recovered, depending upon their view)had put some clean time together, and decided to enter the field. The amount of time 'clean' greatly varied, from a couple of months, to several years.

Another possibility I dread thinking about is might this be an unspoken arrogance on the part of the bureaucracy, "They should be grateful to have a job."

As it stands now, programs have obtained public money for their treatment facilities without 'specifics' as to the counseling composition and make-up. Usually those that are eligible are going to school for the CADAC/LADC but not always. The other disciplines such as social work and mental health clinicians provide internships that may or may not be funded.

In these situations the interns are being supervised by people on staff that "do" have the certifications and licensing. This is not necessarily true in the case of addiction counselors.

I see the last reason for this as strictly an economic one. Usually, those counseling in the public sector make half what those in the private and hospital sector do.

Having worked in both over the years I can attest to the fact that in the private and hospital sectors, most of the counselors that I have worked with had ten years plus of experience. Granted, this in and of itself is not a guarantee of peak efficiency and counseling skills. But would you rather have your loved one counseled by someone with years of experience that is licensed and/or credentialed, or, a person that has been working in the field for six months and may or may not be getting direct counseling supervision and continuing education?

Personally, I would like to see all treatment programs that run on public money, our tax dollars, be required to publicly file all positions within their organizations and what the funding is per individual positions (not lumped together by category).

Not too long ago, I was working with a patient that was detoxing. I looked at his chart and his last job was working as a 'counselor' at a state funded facility. I asked him how much time he had clean prior to taking the job, he told me six months. Are you in school for addiction counseling, no he replied. Then he told me the main reason that he was hired is that most of the patients coming into the facility where he worked were people that he had "run with" on the street and management figured he could 'settle' any issues that arose during the course of their stays.

Now there's a reason to hire someone, huh?

So long as this attitude remains in the field, addiction counselors will continue to be viewed as members of a para-profession.