SHIP's mission is to assist persons in recovery who are often hardest to house to obtain and sustain safe, affordable housing through innovative and inclusive partnerships.
ship services
Therapeutic Communities
Therapeutic Communities (TC) are drug-free residential settings that use a hierarchical model with treatment stages that reflect increased levels of personal and social responsibility. Peer influence, mediated through a variety of group processes, is used to help individuals learn and assimilate social norms and develop more effective social skills.
TC differ from other treatment approaches principally in their use of community, comprising treatment staff and those in recovery, as key agents of change. TC members interact in structured and unstructured ways to influence attitudes, perceptions and behaviors associated with drug use.
Many individuals admitted to TC’s have a history of social functioning, educational/vocational skills, and positive community and family ties that have been eroded by the substance abuse. For them, recovery involved rehabilitation -- relearning or re-establishing healthy functioning, skills and values as well as regaining physical and emotional health. Other TC residents have never acquired functional life-styles. For these people, the TC is usually their first exposure to orderly living. Recovery for them involves habilitation -- learning for the first time the behavioral skills, attitudes, and values associated with socialized living.