Celebrate the field`s achievers

We're fast approaching the time when we conduct one of our most enjoyable tasks at Addiction Professional: taking a brief pause from reporting on strategies to achieve clinical excellence in order to call attention to those who have reached that highest standard.

The nomination process is now open for our second annual Outstanding Clinicians Awards, honoring exemplary clinical achievements in the areas of addiction counseling, clinical supervision and addiction medicine. Visit https://www.addictionpro.com to access the award nomination form. This year's deadline for submitting nominations is Oct. 30.

We received a total of 72 nominations in our first year, and it was indeed gratifying to see the extent to which client-centered and creative approaches characterized the nominees' work. Our award recipients in 2009, Glynis Matthews (counseling), Ruthann Adam (clinical supervision) and Frederick Montgomery (physician services), offered a diversity of career experiences but shared some important core values. They stopped at nothing to improve services for their clients, and they never believed they had learned everything they needed to know about effective treatment.

In some respects, our inaugural group of winners represented the unsung heroes who are everywhere in this field. Even though two of the individuals worked for large and nationally prominent chemical dependency treatment operations in Texas and Washington state, none would necessarily be considered household names in the treatment community overall. And actually, they prefer it that way. We seek to base our selections not on the number of pages in a candidate's CV, but on what the individual's experience shows about his/her ability to reach the vulnerable client and become a change agent in that person's life.

If someone in your organization, or another colleague of yours in the field, fits that description, please take the time to submit a nomination for that leader. We again will be honoring an individual in each of the categories of counselor, clinical supervisor/manager and physician-three roles that are central to the professionalization of the field and the move toward evidence-based practice.

Please highlight in the nomination text any of the individual's accomplishments in subject areas that reflect major trends in addiction services, from research-to-practice initiatives to integrated treatment to clinical success in working with special populations. And let us know of any other individuals or organizations that can offer supporting information on the nominee's behalf. The quality of last year's nominations was outstanding. While we won't automatically include last year's candidates in this year's review process, you may resubmit nominees for consideration, adding any new information from recent endeavors that might be relevant to the selection process.
The 2010 award recipients will be honored in February at the SECAD 2010 conference in Nashville, an event sponsored by Addiction Professional's publisher, Vendome Group. In addition, the honorees' work will be featured in profiles to be published in the January/February 2010 issue of the magazine. Please assist us in the important effort to celebrate our field's highest achievers and to share their keys to success.
Gary A. Enos, Editor Addiction Professional 2009 September-October;7(5):6