Therapeutic communities have shown great promise for producing significant behavioral changes and successful """"""""habilitation"""""""" of substance abusers and addicts (DeLeon, 2000). In order to understand how therapeutic communities are differentially successful, a focus upon their organization and management is critical. Several aspects of therapeutic community management appear to be problematic in maximizing the effectiveness of these organizations. These include recruitment of clients, retention of clients, maintaining organizational funding, and characteristics of those in management and leadership positions. We propose a longitudinal study of organizational features and managerial practices in a nationally representative sample of therapeutic communities, excluding those based in prisons or other correctional settings. An initial part of the study design will center on the definition of the therapeutic community, using the established measures of the Essential Elements Questionnaires. The primary goal of the study is to discern the predictors of different patterns of organizational performance, stability and change in this sample of therapeutic communities as these organizations cope with the turbulent environment of substance abuse treatment. Using a representative national sample (N=450), this study would collect longitudinal data on the following sets of variables: organizational structure, organizational/therapeutic culture, organizational management, treatment inputs, treatment/clinical process, treatment/clinical management, characteristics of therapeutic community leadership and management, external environment and organizational performance.
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