The Archway Team meets regularly to coordinate the complex work we do. Substance Use Disorder treatment has lots of moving parts.
Most people see the counseling and therapy groups. This is where the transforming work gets done. Think: Assessments, Diagnosis, Treatment Planning, Documentation, Care Coordination, Documentation, Medication Management, Documentation, Relapse Prevention Planning, Documentation, Discharge Planning, Documentation.
Did we mention documentation?
This is just on the treatment side. Hidden from view is a rich, complex array of activity that makes it all work. Intake and discharge, treatment scheduling, quality assurance, and billing and accounting is just the beginning.
Add to that facilities maintenance. We have 14 sites. Think 50 toilets, 20 washers and driers and refrigerators and freezers, HVAC systems, landscaping to be maintained, windows to be washed, broken this and broken that to be fixed, OSHA standards, fire drills, and vehicle logs.
There is purchasing. We feed 29 men in residential treatment every day and we provide household supplies for another 50 or so in our Sober Living Environments. Someone has to buy those supplies, distribute those supplies, and account for those supplies. And then there are pencils, pens, post-it notes, dry erase markers, paper, tablets, notebooks, paper clips, staples, etc. for, what? 30 offices?
And who manages the computers and the IT. How many computers need to be updated? How do we address glitches in software? Accounting software, database software, electronic medical records software, and whatever other software we use to keep the operation going.
Do we dare talk about Human Resources? Onboarding a new employee takes days and days. God bless our staff with all the forms they have to fill out. There is compulsory training. There is credentialing. There is the standard tax and payroll data.
Then there are the audits. HR audits seem to be in process all the time. Every week we are either completing an audit, getting ready for an audit, or compiling the documentation for an audit. A recent audit required over 750 pages of employee documents to be broken down into categories, scanned, and emailed to a treatment partner for review. The scanning alone took three members of the team working all day to get the material sent out.
Yes, it’s NUTS. And there is so much more.
COO Wanda Cook talked about motivation at our recent team meeting. In SUD treatment we address motivation for recovery. We assess for patient motivation. We feed patient motivation. We celebrate patient motivation.
But what about staff motivation?
Wanda reminded us that recovery at Archway works only when we can celebrate the sustained motivation of each person on the ARS team.
We are proud of Suzie, and Steven, and Juan, and Ken, and Ed, and Rebecca, and Mike, and Waverly, and Kathryn, and. . ., and. . ., and. . . . The list goes on and on.
The men and women of the Archway team come to work every day motivated to do their jobs because at the end the day, it’s not about them. It is about the people we serve.
One person at a time, one day at a time, everyone deserves to live a life of dignity, freedom, and joy. The ARS team makes it happen.