What is a Guest?
A Guest at Royal Life Centers
A guest is an individual who is welcomed and accommodated by the person or people acting as a host(s).
We are the hosts at Royal Life Centers at Chapter 5, offering an open-ended greeting to those who connect with us for help. More than anything, we respect the people within our care and consider them our welcome guests.
As your host, we are resolved to give a respectful and supportive atmosphere to help mend and heal our guests during rehabilitation. Our services, techniques, and staff endeavor to keep every guest grounded and feeling consistently supported. The constant reassurance and care without judgment grow a culture of trust in our staff and among peers. This enables our guests to develop self-acknowledgment and self-esteem that is essential for long-lasting recovery.
How Can The Term Guest Help In Recovery?
Although most treatment providers allude to the people in their programs as “clients” or “patients”, we consider you to be guests from the second you enter our facility. We accept the gift of aiding you all throughout your visit, ensuring your accommodations are acceptable, and being a true and open line of communication for you during your recovery. You are our guests, and it is a pleasure to have you. You are not just invited into Royal Life Centers at Chapter 5, you act as a fundamental part of the continuous progress to come during your visit and your recovery. As our guests, we need you to feel safe, comfortable, and respected.
Since our beginnings, Royal Life Centers has promised to regard our guests as people. We have never utilized the term patient, nor do we support any language that can be interpreted in a belittling way. As a major treatment network, we see it as our duty to assist in the eradication of harmful stigmas and judgmental language used to refer to addiction. We also strive to normalize person-first, guest-centric language and increase addiction education and awareness.
We at Chapter 5 see the principal approach to invoke change is to alter the way in which we talk about addiction. The nonprofit organization Shatterproof has devoted itself to turning around the Addiction Crisis in the U.S. Shatterproof accepts that the revolutionization of addiction prevention, treatment, recovery, and advocacy is only possible through the restructuring of “the country’s consciousness” with a focus on ending the stigma surrounding substance use disorders.
Be Our Guest
At Royal Life Centers at Chapter 5, it’s paramount that we treat our guests fairly and as equals. Chapter 5 staff speaks to our guests with non-judgemental language to encourage open communication and trust. We incorporate stigma-reducing behaviors and respectful collaboration by:
- Chapter 5 staff introduce themselves in a calm paced way during a guest’s initial assessment to lessen any apprehension during their entrance into treatment.
- We address guests by their preferred name to maintain a level of comfort and express respect.
- Guests complete a biopsychosocial evaluation and collaborate with their therapist to create an individualized service plan (ISP).
- We stress that all questions are welcome and guests can ask staff members directly without worries.
- Chapter 5 staff monitors our guests 24/7 to ensure their well-being throughout the treatment process.
- We show each guest around the facility so they can relax in the place they will call home for the length of their treatment.
- We keep the facility clean and comfortable at all times.
- Our staff plan activities to entertain, educate, and accommodate each guest.
- We encourage healthy interactions between each of our guests to assist them in finding a common bond with their peers.
Additionally, it is important to note that the guests staying at Royal Life Centers at Chapter 5 are viewed as equals. Chapter 5 staff treat our guests with compassion and consideration We work to ensure that every guest has a sense of safety and consistency. As such, we position ourselves in a manner that allows all of our guests quick and easy access to us should they require our assistance. One of the ways Chapter 5’s staff incorporates a feeling of empathy and compassion inside our programs is by utilizing guest-centric language.
What is ‘Guest-Centric’ Language?
We understand the significance of words—the things we say have the ability to affect the way that others feel. We pick our words cautiously because while words can be encouraging, they can also do tremendous damage. For this reason, we elect to communicate in a language that embodies positive energy and growth. To clarify, while words can recuperate and benefit recovery, they can likewise hurt and diminish a person’s inspiration. Our staff recognizes that our guest-centric treatment stretches out past the services and programs and into the way that we communicate with our guests.
Truth be told, many individuals want to express their compassion and comprehension of their loved one’s circumstances. Sadly, the stigmas encompassing substance use disorders impede their ability to properly communicate their feelings. Because of this, a large portion of us has never received a positive example of non-critical, person-first language (PFL) to model our behavior off of when speaking about addiction.
Person-First Language In Treatment
When talking about an individual with a substance use disorder, person-first phrases provide consistent, objective terminology to avoid simplifications or labels. Instead of using the blame language surrounding addiction, “they’re an addict,” PFL reframes the statement as “person with a substance use disorder.”
For this reason, person-first language removes the judgmental tone used to address topics of addiction that typically identify a person as their disability.
The term “addict” is dismissive, cruel, and approaches addiction with an air of superiority instead of compassion. It should be mentioned, many who use these outdated terms simply lack the sensitivity education that assists in safe, respectful communication. This is because American schooling systems and media outlets never expose the public to an understanding perspective with regards to addiction. In fact, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a thought piece in 1999 detailing the potentially harmful effects of distancing language used in addiction treatment settings, i.e., “patients” and “clients”.
Replacing terms such as “addict,” “junkie,” and “druggie” with person-first language like “a person with a SUD” minimizes the ingrained judgment in American culture. The environment surrounding substance use disorders has trained the general public— and some clinicians— to respond to addiction with punishment over treatment. Removing this mindset from society helps the addiction treatment community and the world to enact effective change.
Words affect how we perceive people and, by extension, how we treat them, whether we like it or not. We need to improve the way we talk about and to people who have substance use disorders to support them. This is why Chapter 5 incorporates guest-centric language to treat our guests with dignity and respect.
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