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ACT ALIVE !
Prince Attoh, M.A and Cori Lin Meek, M.Ed.
People's Place Act Program
219 S. Walnut St.
Milford, DE 19963
The ACT (Access to Community Treatment) Program was initiated in 1994 to provide
community therapeutic intervention to adolescents and children ages 6 to 18 and their families.
Our mission is to create practical, realistic and consistent therapeutic alliances with families. The
primary objective is to assist all of our clients to maintain a healthy balance within their
households and communities while removing barriers that once interfered with the helping
process. The ACT Crisis model is implemented and energized by workers representing a variety
of theoretical disciplines and educational backgrounds. Essential to the successful treatment of
children and their families is the necessity to provide workers with supervision, training, and
support at the agency level. In hiring prospective clinicians/workers, agencies must explore (and
examine) the applicants ability to work independently, be flexible in their approach to work and
with families constantly changing life. Since therapists as well as volunteer workers intervene in
the lives of children and their families as they are experiencing their world, this community based
therapeutic approach often finds workers providing service in the home, school, work and social
environments. This village concept of treatment strongly emphasizes the therapist/worker
relationship with the child or family and critical to successful treatment is the development of a
trusting relationship that transfers across environments. Adjusting to the village where treatment
takes place requires the therapist/worker to recognize opportunities for intervention beyond the
traditional clinical environment. Agencies must assure that therapists/workers are prepared to
respond to the needs of the clients as well as provide treatment designed to assist them with their
functioning within the family and village. The provision of clinical, group and administrative
supervision is critical to assist workers in successfully achieving this goal. Because the worker
often builds therapeutic relationships with all members of a family, the clear establishment of
boundaries and confidentiality policy can often become very challenging. Ongoing supervision at
the organizational level assists in providing maximum support and flexibility. In many instances in
our community we have to learn how to avoid bureaucratic nonsense to enable productive
outcomes. We have also learned to combine an extremely loosely structured streamlined crisis
program with a family centered approach. The definition of work and job will be explained as well
as what is important and essential about crisis intervention/prevention. Finally, appropriate
orientation and training must be structured to ensure that workers are well prepared to provide
crisis intervention and referral services. It is extremely important to know how to maintain a
healthy attitude about community work and to acknowledge the seriousness of it.