Wounded Systems of Care

We spend a lot of time talking about recovery-oriented systems of care. Important, but should we first look at facilitating recovery for our systems of care?

Peapod writes about healing treatment systems (systems, not clients). She draws from a recent Bill White document about the Philadelphia experience and describes a critical juncture:

In Philadelphia in 2004, they decided to tackle the things that were wrong in their services. They did a giant exercise in information gathering, something they called a ‘fearless inventory’ after the AA fourth step. You can see the detail here:

They uncovered that some unhealthy stuff was going on. Organisations were not talking to each other. They existed like islands connected by drawbridges that ‘were permanently up’.

Focus groups uncovered “an underlying tone of paternalism, disrespect and, at times, outright contempt.”