Pigeons, Doves and Ravens

How to Create a positive culture in a long-term residential Drug/Alcohol treatment setting

By: Dave Louis, MA CCS CAADC
One day a while back, I was having a phone conversation with a colleague and somehow the topic of how to handle problem clients in our long-term residential programs came up. I started explaining to him how I had recently come to group the residents of our long term programs into three types. The first are those who are really wanting to get help with their substance abuse, want to quit using, and they will confront and challenge those who don’t. Then there are those who do not want to quit using addictive substances and are continually looking for every opportunity to find a way to smuggle addictive substances into our centers, and have no intention of following our rules. Then there is a group in the middle who will go along with whichever of these two previous groups they are most exposed to or which group they perceive as the dominant culture in any given facility. After I spent about 10 minutes explaining what I thought was a brilliant summary of this issue, my colleague says, "Oh yeah Dave, those are the Pigeons, Doves and Ravens". And he proceeded to explain the behaviors of each of these types of birds and how it corresponded to what I had just said. And I must say that his connection to these birds was brilliant! This article will be an attempt to lay out these underlying principles and teach administrators, managers and therapists of long-term treatment settings how to apply them.

Doves

In a long-term residential program, there will always be those in treatment who are serious about their recovery, and I'll call them doves. Doves have either come to treatment because they are internally motivated to change, or they have been in treatment long enough for that change to have taken place. As an administrator, Doves are the individuals in your programs who will give you the information you need to know about what is really going on in the population. When properly motivated and supported by consistent and predictable leadership responses, doves are the individuals who will create a positive culture of sobriety, accountability and safety in your residential program. Doves are the individuals who provide mentor ship and leadership to the pigeons (we will discuss them later). However, doves are very easily offended if they perceive that the administration is weak, ineffective and unresponsive to problems that are occurring in the program, especially as it relates to issues of contraband, drug use in the facility and blatant disrespect and "jailhouse" type behavior. Doves are the natural enemy of the raven and become easily offended if they think that the ravens are running the show in a residential facility.

Ravens

Ravens are the clients in your residential treatment setting who, unfortunately, are looking for every opportunity possible to use substances while in treatment. Ravens are like scavenger birds who circle around your residential center looking for impressionable pigeons in order to influence them against taking their sobriety seriously. Ravens are those who are always looking for the best hiding spots for 

contraband, who are looking for ways to smuggle in contraband, and will never give any information to administration regarding who has contraband or where it is. Ravens are the ones who drive administrators crazy because they create one crisis after another. These individuals usually find their way into long-term residential treatment through the court system or extreme family pressures, and therefore they are mainly motivated to remain in our programs because of the threat of going to jail or being abandoned by their wives, children or parents. This means there is rarely a strong or developed internal motivation or desire to do the right thing. Ravens are not beyond help and change; nobody is. However, they have a pathology that is very difficult to deal with in the midst of a larger long term residential setting.

Pigeons

Pigeons, usually the largest group in any long-term residential center, are those who aren't so sure which way they want to go yet in terms of their recovery from substance use. On the one hand, there is a part of them that knows that they need to get better and participate fully in treatment. They look at the doves in your program and want to be like them. They have a part of them that wants to live a positive, clean and sober lifestyle. However, there is also a big part of them that is prone to be influenced by the ravens of your program. When the ravens approach them with contraband or with a plan to get contraband, they seriously consider participating with them. However, and this is the key point, pigeons have a different thought process than a raven when considering the choice to seek out and use contraband in your facility. Where the ravens will seek out and use contraband first and then worry about the consequences of getting caught later, the pigeons will consider the risk of getting caught versus the reward of the contraband. If the pigeon thinks that the administration is inconsistent, weak and ineffective in dealing with ravens, they will more likely choose to join the ravens in acquiring and using contraband. However, if the pigeon perceives that the administration is consistent, strong and effective in dealing with the offenses of ravens, they will be less likely to join in.

HELP, RAVENS ARE RUNNING MY RESIDENTIAL CENTER!

To summarize, there are three types of clients in any long term residential setting: the doves, the pigeons and the ravens. Each has their own unique set of motivations, desires and values. Each is in a different stage of their recovery from substance use disorder. For the administrators of a long-term treatment center hijacked by ravens, much of their time is spent trying to bring order to chaos. A typical administrator of a medium to large sized residential treatment center hijacked by ravens, is constantly chasing down contraband, behavior problems and issues stemming the ravens in the program. This creates the additional problem of the burnout and exhaustion created in the therapists and support staff as they try to provide quality care in the midst of a raven infested facility. Also, the doves of your program become very discouraged when the ravens are running the show in your program, and many of them will leave treatment because of it, giving the ravens even more dominance in your facility. The doves will also start to think that there is no point in giving the administration any information about what the ravens are doing, because the price is too high for them to give that information. For example, if your doves are bold enough to step forward and give administration information about what the ravens are doing, and nothing is done about it, then they have to endure the ravens retaliation, usually in the form of calling them "snitches" and various other bullying tactics. Also, in a residential setting dominated by unopposed ravens, the pigeons in your facility are going to also act like ravens, even though they aren't. The pigeons calculate that the reward of using the contraband outweighs the risk of getting caught, so they actively participate in the chaos that is being created by the ravens. This makes the administration think that everyone is a raven, when that is not the case. What is an administrator to do in this situation? How do you restore order in your residential facility?

THE BIGGEST MISTAKE ADMINISTRATORS MAKE

One of the biggest mistakes that administrators make is to spend all their thinking and energy in crafting and enforcing rules that are specifically targeted at the ravens of the facility. Many administrators will attempt to changes policies, create new rules, and deploy more staff, all to target the behaviors of the ravens. It makes sense to think that if you crack down on the ravens through rules and policies, this will eliminate the behavior of the ravens. However, this rarely works. Why?

This approach doesn't work for several reasons. First of all, ravens are not impacted by rules and threats of punishment. Remember that ravens are in a place in their recovery process where they are not ready or willing to stop using substances. Therefore, they are on a constant quest to find contraband and get around the rules. Their mentality is such that rules and threats of consequences are of no value, because they think, "I won't get caught and the reward of using is worth the risk". And unfortunately this drive and desire to use substances is too strong for threats of consequences to override. Secondly, this approach has unintended negative consequences upon the doves of your facility. When the administrators and therapists are putting all their attention upon the ravens of the facility and trying to bring them under control, the doves become discouraged because they begin to perceive that the program is not for them. While they may appreciate that the administration is trying to clamp down on the behaviors of the ravens, they will begin to resent the fact that the whole energy of the therapists and administrators seems to be geared toward controlling the ravens, rather than helping them in their recovery. But this is not the most destructive unintended consequence for a long-term residential program.

The most destructive unintended consequence of the administration trying to solve their raven problem by focusing on rules that will change ravens, is the effect it has on the pigeons. The most tragic thing that can happen is when these types of policies create a circumstance where the administration cannot tell the difference between the ravens and the pigeons. In a residential setting where the ravens are the dominant population, as explained above, the pigeons will go along with them because they always go along with the strongest influence. The administration must understand that in a raven dominated treatment center there are actually fewer ravens than they think, because the pigeons are merely acting like ravens when they are not. When the administration targets the behaviors of the ravens in an attempt to change them, then the pigeons who are merely going along with the ravens get caught in the crossfire.

Once again, the biggest mistake long term residential treatment centers make is to focus their program reforms and rule changes upon changing the behavior of ravens. So what will change your culture? First you must identify and remove the ravens from your treatment facility. Then you must create policies and rules that primarily target the behaviors of the pigeons and motivate the good qualities of the doves. In other words, the primary energy and effort in term of policies and enforcement need to be geared toward discouraging pigeons from following the ravens and empowering doves to stand up to the ravens.

HOW TO MOTIVATE PIGEONS

What do the pigeons need to see in order to be motivated to change? Very simply, they need to see certain behaviors of the ravens treated with a zero-tolerance policy. They need to understand that bringing illicit contraband into your facility and the use of illicit contraband will be met with strong, consistent consequences. As explained earlier, pigeons consider whether or not to participate with ravens by considering if the reward of using the contraband outweighs the consequences of getting caught. So if your policies are geared toward giving ravens chance after chance, in order to see them change, then the pigeons of your program will also participate with the ravens because they assume they will also get chance after chance if they get caught. However, when the pigeons start to see the ravens behavior responded to with strong consequences, up to and including dismissal from the facility, then they will think twice about participating.

HOW TO DETERMINE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A RAVEN AND A PIGEON?

If you are following along, you may be asking the question, "So how do I tell the difference between a raven and a pigeon"? This is a valid question. The careful and thoughtful administrator should struggle with this problem. The last thing an administrator who truly desires to help individuals with substance use disorder wants to do is to dismiss anyone from their program who has a desire to change (pigeons) but happens to get caught up with bad actors (ravens). But what criteria is there to determine the difference between the two? If two individuals get caught for the same exact behavior, how can you tell who the pigeon is and who the raven is? This is not an easy question to answer. It takes a seasoned administrator to have the patience to investigate and wisdom to tell them difference. In an attempt to help communicate this wisdom practically, I created a worksheet. As you will see, the worksheet lists a set of aggravating factors and mitigating factors to consider, with points assigned to each factor. The aggravating factors are associated with the behaviors of ravens, while the mitigating factors are associated with the behaviors of pigeons. There is a point system that can be used to help with the decision of whether the individual is a raven or a pigeon. Of course, this is not a perfect science, but it at least provides a framework for making these difficult decisions.

HOW TO MOTIVATE DOVES

If you follow the advice above, namely either severely sanctioning or removing Ravens from your residential center, this will automatically motivate the doves in your program and will also encourage them that you as an administrator are taking things seriously. In a larger long-term residential treatment setting, with 50+ clients, it is also helpful to group your doves together and create opportunities for them to form a community within your program. There should be special activities and groups that are promoted which bring doves together, such as groups that take place during free-time, where it is not mandated to attend. Doves are usually drawn to positive activities that are optional and take place during free time, and the ravens avoid these types of activities. There is also the possibility of creating leadership positions for doves within your program. For example, they can be placed in positions of room leader, dorm monitor, recreation monitor, etc... They can also be placed on a team which performs orientation for new clients in the program, which gives them a chance to communicate a positive culture to new clients from the time that they walk in the door. The head administrators should create opportunities to meet with these leaders for a special breakfast or luncheon, where they can feel appreciated and encouraged by the administrators to continue to push for a culture of excellence among the clients.

WHAT ABOUT THE RAVENS? IS THERE NO HOPE FOR THEM?

Up to this point, it has been stated in several ways that the only way to rescue the negative culture within a long-term residential treatment setting that has been hijacked by ravens, is to remove the ravens from the treatment center. It was pointed out that the biggest mistake administrators make is that they attempt to craft and create rules to change the behaviors of ravens, which in a larger setting will not work, and it drains valuable energy, time, motivation and resources. What then? Do we just throw ravens to the streets? These individuals need help with substance use disorder as much as everyone else, but do we have no way of helping them? The answer is no, there is something that can be done.

Within the network of residential centers called PA Adult and Teen Challenge, there is one large residential treatment center we have that houses around 250 individuals in one location. There are also smaller residential settings that house from 20-30 individuals in one residential setting. Over the years, the smaller residential settings have partnered with the large setting to help with their raven problem. In a large setting with 250 individuals in the same location, by using the tools outlined in this essay they will be identifying ravens on a regular basis who are bringing contraband into the facility and showing no signs of true remorse or willingness to change. What our network has done over the years is to use the smaller residential facilities that hold 20-30 individuals to transfer the ravens into for a program of targeted therapy and behavioral intervention. In other words, instead of our only option being to dismiss a raven to the streets, we offer them a chance to transfer to a smaller setting, with specialized staff, who are trained how to deal with the behavior of ravens. I could give many stories over the years of ravens who found their way to our smaller facilities and were given the proper structure and therapy to transform them at least into pigeons, if not even into doves! Therefore, it is recommended that larger residential facilities create smaller programs within their network where they can send ravens in order to separate them from the larger population of doves and pigeons and give them the targeted therapy that they need.

THERE IS HOPE

If you are an administrator of a large residential treatment program, I hope this essay has been helpful. I hope it has given you a grid for understanding the problems that occur in a long-term residential setting and how to deal with them. And I say long-term residential, because I believe that short-term residential settings (14-30 days of treatment) have much different dynamics and that many of the strategies outlined here will not be as effective, if for no other reason than there is not enough time to make them work effectively.

Message me to request a .PDF copy of the worksheet mentioned in this article, to help you tell the difference between a pigeon and a raven!