Use of Ex-Addicts and Other Paraprofessionals as Mental Health Workers in Prisons

• NCJ Number: 72304
• Journal: DISEASES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM Volume: 37 Issue: 12 Dated: (December 1976) Pages: 679-682
• Author(s): E Kaufman
• Date Published: 1976
• Length: 4 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: This article is based in part on material presented at the 35th Annual Scientific Meeting, Committee on Problems of Drug Dependence, Division of Medical Sciences of the National Research Council on May 21, 23, 1973 at Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Annotation

Paraprofessionals, especially those who are rehabilitated ex-addicts, can play an important role in providing basic mental health services in such difficult settings as the overcrowded New York City Prison System (NYC).

Abstract

A basic premise about service delivery at NYC was that mental health care can best be provided by a balance of professionals and rehabilitated paraprofessionals. The latter were carefully chosen among the hardcore unemployed and from the Manpower Career Development Agency (MCDA) and the Emergency Employment Act. The rehabilitated ex-addicts had either graduated from a Drug Free Program or had been on methadone treatment for more than 1 year with no extraneous drug abuse. During the first 14 months of the program, only 3 of the 23 ex-addicts (13 percent) did not work out satisfactorily. There was a higher turnover for nonaddict paraprofessionals, and ex-addicts were consistently more competent, reliable, and punctual. Basically, one supervisor was maintained for every five paraprofessionals during all phases of the 6-month training program. A career ladder is being developed by NYC as a primary result of the paraprofessional program, which succeeded in raising to a high level of employability individuals who had been as unemployable as the inmates they served. The paraprofessionals functioned as primary group and individual counselors, as a core in various therapeutic communities, as supervisors and instructors in a suicide watch program, as case workers, and as the backbone to an aftercare program. These workers operated on an identification principle, being 'brothers' to the inmates, using their unique skills of social manipulation, and exercising the confrontation approach in some situations. Problems these paraprofessionals still had to face were overidentification with inmates and inability to deal with inmates' failure. Other difficulties arose from being trained in a system that is radically and rapidly changing, and from coping with unresolved problems in their own lives. Given the careful selection and training of participants, such a paraprofessional program seems highly successful in benefitting both the rehabilitated paraprofessionals and the inmates they serve. A bibliography contains 14 references.