Negotiating Recovery Making conflict a positive force to bring change in Baltimore
One of the tenets of the addiction treatment field is that addiction is a family disease, affecting not only the addicted individual, but also family members, and often friends, coworkers and acquaintances. Dwayne Gould, an addiction counselor at New Life, became aware of the importance of addressing family issues relatively early in his career. Gould entered the counseling field in 1998, working in a group home supervising troubled juveniles who had been referred by the court system. “The juveniles would stay for 28 days and then go home. In working with the clients, we’d find that whatever structure we had put in place for them while in treatment would go out the window when they went home.” For those clients, “home” was often a dysfunctional, counterproductive environment, Gould says. “Frequently, either the parents had been removed from the home or it was drug-infested.” Gould soon realized that to be more effective he would have to find ways to help parents deal with their own problems and shortcomings, so they could do a better job of parenting, thus giving their children a better chance at succeeding in life.
The Negotiation Gould’s early work in the field also helped him decide on a focus for his master’s degree. After earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Morgan State University, Gould chose negotiation and conflict management as the focus for his master’s degree. “I knew that would be helpful in what I was trying to do. Just about everything in life is rife with conflict. Conflict can be constructive even though people usually don’t see it that way; but it can give you opportunities for growth.” Gould was able to apply his conflict- resolution expertise in one unique project he developed in a city correctional facility: a mediation program for inmates returning home from long-term incarceration, to help them resolve any family or other conflicts before returning home. The “jail to home” mediation program still continues today at Metropolitan Transition Center in Baltimore.
“Conflict can be constructive, even if people usually don’t see it that way.” -Dwayne Gould addiction counselor New LIfe
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