Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: As prisons and jails become our defacto mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities, there is an expanding need for social workers within these institutions. Increasing opportunities for social work visibility in prison settings may be viewed skeptically by social workers that question whether treatment is possible and if they can maintain their professional styles and values when working in such settings. This may be especially true when working in treatment environments that are jointly staffed by corrections and treatment professionals. Because these ‘hybrid' models of care may be indicative of future trends in service provision, examining the perceptions of participating prisoners and comparing them to prisoners within the same prison who are not in the therapeutic units may provide important information. The purpose of this study was to determine if treatment and correctional staff from three, prison-based treatment programs were successful in creating a therapeutic hybrid model and how each staff group was perceived by prisoners. Methods: Assessments of environmental climate (Correctional Institution Environment Scale- CIES) and staff attributes (Personality Attributes Questionnaire) were disseminated to inmates in three state prisons (2 male and 1 female) within one state. Comparisons were made between those in therapeutic ‘hybrid' units (n=701) and those in non-therapeutic units (n=329) in each of the facilities. Results: Inmates residing in therapeutic units had significantly more positive perceptions of the environment, as well as both staff groups, than inmates within the same prison in non-therapeutic units. However regression analysis suggests that specific staff attributes are associated with these positive feelings and are different for each staff group (corrections v. treatment staff). For example, the attribute of ‘kindness' from corrections staff explained the most variance in how prisoners evaluated the environmental climate. Implications: Across the three prisons, those in the hybrid units felt much more positive about their living environments than those in non-treatment units within the same prison. Since all other features in the comparison units were constant (e.g., setting, architecture, corrections policy and procedures, etc), the catalyst for the dissimilarity in responses can be attributed to the influx of treatment staff and the therapeutic milieu. These results suggest that these treatment models can be successful and that social workers can maintain an individual identity. Social workers have an important role and responsibility in the treatment and rehabilitation of incarcerated men and women and schools of social work need to prepare social workers for these roles.