A local agency is hiring CD Technicians. Any idea what they do?
Your best bet is to get a detailed job description from the facility, but I used to be one lo these many years ago, and I can share my experiences.
Essentially, you’re a baby-sitter. Many facilities have strict rules about patient behavior so patients don’t undermine their treatment. At the facility where I worked, patients were taken to 12-step meetings in the local community. The standing policy was not to allow patients to have one-on-one contact with anyone except sponsors. They were also not permitted to accept consumable items from an individual; they could get coffee and snacks from common urns or plates. We had to search their person and property when we got back from meetings. Meals had to be documented to make sure they were eating appropriately. Medication administration had to be documented, and meds had to be kept locked up and accounted for. The biggest thing was that everything had to be documented somehow. There was a communication notebook that techs were supposed to use so that therapists and techs could be on the same page, so to speak. Patient requests, behavioral problems, possible medical problems, and even conversations with patients had to be documented for therapist review. (Patients, BTW, were not allowed to know that this notebook even existed.)
The key things to remember are that patients have no privacy while they are in treatment, and it’s your job to keep it that way. The patients know this, but they’ll still blame you when they screw up. You have to work to get and keep their trust, and since there is almost constant turn-around of patients, that is a constant thing. You also have to be able to tell the difference between manipulative behavior and genuine needs, and that’s not always easy to do. “No” has to become your new favorite word until you’re comfortable making judgment calls on your own. And, at least at the rehab where I worked, staff had to follow the same rules in terms of no one-on-one contact, nor could we socialize with friends. We were there to do a job, and our own lives could wait. Many of us, including me, were in 12-step programs ourselves, so we naturally knew people at meetings. In fact, we were encouraged to attend different meetings so we wouldn’t run into patients or other staff.
We were all laid off when the patient census went to zero. I never went back.
Robin
Wow…how amazing that I googled for an answer to this myself, as the ad I saw today gave no indication just what it is…I didn’t even know CD stood for Chemical Dependancy…anyway, how amazing that this board provided the answer! Thank you in retrospect 