Brandywine Counseling & Community Services saves lives. We help people recover from addiction and mental illness, and reduce their HIV risk. Each life saved touches other lives, families, and communities in the Delaware region.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Mosaic Mural Under Construction
All of us here at BCI are excited to watch our new mosaic mural going up in the entrance hall at the Lancaster Center. The mural is a tree symbolizing how addiction, through treatment, grows into recovery. In keeping with this theme, the words written on the tiles transition from negative at the bottom to positive at the top. The artist is generously volunteering her time to create this unique piece.
Here are some photos of the work in progress!
Drug Dealing Prevention Group
Are you involved with drug dealing or street addiction and want to change your lifestyle for the better? BCI has started a Drug Dealing Prevention Group.
The group takes place Tuesdays from 3:30 to 4:30 PM at the Alpha Center at 2814 West 2nd Street. Participants will learn strategies for making a prosocial life change. You must be a BCI Alpha client to attend.
This is the first group of its kind at BCI and one of the most-requested group topics by our clients.
For more information, please call 472-0381.
The group takes place Tuesdays from 3:30 to 4:30 PM at the Alpha Center at 2814 West 2nd Street. Participants will learn strategies for making a prosocial life change. You must be a BCI Alpha client to attend.
This is the first group of its kind at BCI and one of the most-requested group topics by our clients.
For more information, please call 472-0381.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Confound It! Outside Forces Interfere with Incentives Experiment
The question: Will clients stay longer in addiction treatment if we reward them for attendance? The answer: Well, we don’t know. And I’m not being smart, that is an actual scientific explanation. 
Let me explain.
Our attendance is still below normal since we changed how we give incentives. We could say the new incentives caused attendance to drop – if that was the only thing that changed. But it wasn’t. Over the same time period, record-high numbers of people came in for an intake, and our census increased by 50. On top of that, two counselors and one supervisor were out for several weeks. (One was stuck on the other side of the world – trust me, you don’t want to know.) There were fewer staff to see more clients. If you were a client, which change would be more noticeable to you?
In scientific terms, we manipulated an independent variable (new incentives vs. old incentives) and measured the effect on a dependent variable (retention). Ideally, we would hold all other conditions constant. But our experiment was in a real treatment program, not a laboratory. And wouldn’t you know it, you can’t control external forces in the real world. A condition that offers an alternative and plausible explanation for the results of an experiment is called a confounding variable.
Census and staffing acted as confounding variables in our experiment. This means we can’t call the incentives a success or failure yet. But now things have stabilized and we will keep going. So bear with us, we may get a real answer to our question soon.
Let me explain.Our attendance is still below normal since we changed how we give incentives. We could say the new incentives caused attendance to drop – if that was the only thing that changed. But it wasn’t. Over the same time period, record-high numbers of people came in for an intake, and our census increased by 50. On top of that, two counselors and one supervisor were out for several weeks. (One was stuck on the other side of the world – trust me, you don’t want to know.) There were fewer staff to see more clients. If you were a client, which change would be more noticeable to you?
In scientific terms, we manipulated an independent variable (new incentives vs. old incentives) and measured the effect on a dependent variable (retention). Ideally, we would hold all other conditions constant. But our experiment was in a real treatment program, not a laboratory. And wouldn’t you know it, you can’t control external forces in the real world. A condition that offers an alternative and plausible explanation for the results of an experiment is called a confounding variable.
Census and staffing acted as confounding variables in our experiment. This means we can’t call the incentives a success or failure yet. But now things have stabilized and we will keep going. So bear with us, we may get a real answer to our question soon.
Some new developments to report:
- Our new marketing slogan is in place: Participation = Celebration!
- We’ll be adding prize drawings in groups because the more frequent the reward, the better at reinforcing attendance. Until now, clients got credit for group attendance but had to wait until their next individual session to get their reward.
- Counselors held a focus group to share challenges they had in implementing the program and solutions they had found. Since prize drawings took valuable minutes away from sessions, we moved the prize cabinet closer to counselors’ offices. We also learned that counselors are accustomed to using incentives to reward accomplishments and meet individual needs, so it is a real change to reward participation. A refresher training is planned, and we’ve invited an incentives expert to meet with the staff.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Participation = Celebration!
Our new slogan at the BCI Alpha Drug Free Program. Thanks to Intake Counselor Marc Weisburg for the idea.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Vote For Our Motivational Incentives Slogan
As many of you know, BCI Alpha has been offering motivational incentives to encourage more people to stay in drug and alcohol treatment for at least three months. It remains a challenge – more on that in an upcoming post. We continue to believe this can work and we want to do whatever we can to make it a success.
We’ve decided we need a marketing slogan. If we want to convince people to stay longer in treatment, we need to change their mindset. We need to “sell” our customers on the benefits of sticking with treatment once they’re here. We want to drive home the point that the first few months can be the most difficult, and BCI offers these prizes to help people through this period.
So we want a memorable catch phrase that will generate word of mouth. Something that clients can be reminded of every time they walk in our door, but also remember when they’re not here, and contemplating whether to show up for their appointment.
Help us choose a great slogan by voting for your favorite below, and also post your own ideas. We’ll announce our choice July 18. Thanks!
We’ve decided we need a marketing slogan. If we want to convince people to stay longer in treatment, we need to change their mindset. We need to “sell” our customers on the benefits of sticking with treatment once they’re here. We want to drive home the point that the first few months can be the most difficult, and BCI offers these prizes to help people through this period.
So we want a memorable catch phrase that will generate word of mouth. Something that clients can be reminded of every time they walk in our door, but also remember when they’re not here, and contemplating whether to show up for their appointment.
Help us choose a great slogan by voting for your favorite below, and also post your own ideas. We’ll announce our choice July 18. Thanks!
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