This is my very first blog entry and I am very excited to have an open and honest dialogue with the Hillside community. I am interested in talking about a topic that has some personal as well as professional meaning to me. The topic is gender issues in treatment.

I had a very positive experience recently with a group of Hillside staff and an outside consultant discussing the design of a model residential treatment program called “critical care”. My interest is to develop a critical care program specifically for a female population.

Most of my direct care experience has been in community based services but I have been fortunate enough to learn more about residential services through my current position and connection with the Finger Lakes Campus in Auburn. This is a 40 bed Residential Treatment Facility for boys and girls. Most interesting to me of late, is the girls unit and the substantial changes they have made in their program. In addition to incorporating Dialectical Behavior Therapy, they have infused the living unit with some interventions that honor the feminine side of these young women. This unit practices yoga, participates in daily mindfulness meditations, and has a strong community setting where each young woman openly talks about her struggles with self abuse, eating disorders, sexual identification issues, etc. There is no shame attached to these behaviors and the community of young women work together and individually to address their struggles.

It does appear that the history of residential treatment was largely created for an all male population. Residential services seems to incorporate features that are predominantly found in a masculine environment such as; point systems attached with rewards and consequences, action oriented recreational activities, structured and timed programming, etc. I do wonder if we have failed to honor or at least address equally the important elements of the feminine (intuition, collaboration, creativity, compassion) in our residential settings for both young men and women.

Since I turned 40 this year, it has hit me hard that I must truly work at finding the balance within myself and not just attend to my own masculine side (task driven, action oriented, goal achieving) but to honor the feminine side of me as well. This is no easy task because it feels as though our current climate in human services emphasizes program outcomes, defined service definitions, and achieving multiple measures. All of these serve an important purpose, but I worry that we may be losing an equally important element in the field of human services.

I am excited about the possibility of developing a critical care model specifically for young women that might equally or pre-dominantly honor the feminine side of who they are as individuals and as a community. I would be very interested in your thoughts…….

Alison