Alternatives Life Improvement Center

AGENCY ADDRESS: 3815 West Montague Ave, Suite 202 Chas. SC, 29418
AGENCY PHONE: (843) 767-4477        AGENCY FAX:  (843) 767-0101
 
CONTACT PERSON:  Heather Harrington, LPCS, CEAP, CRC (altheather@aol.com) PHONE: (843) 767-4477
altheather@aol.com FAX: (843) 767-8101 

DESCRIPTION OF AGENCY:
Alternative Life Improvement Center, Inc. is a private for profit counseling organization.  Group counseling is available addressing substance abuse issues, criminal/domestic violence, and habitual crime offenders.  For these groups, a psycho-educational approach is taken following a structured format.  For most individuals in a group, assessments are required to determine the appropriate group type and treatment plan.  Individual counseling for the habitual criminal offender is required using the cognitive-behavioral model.  Staffing is minimally once per week and is required of each employee/student.   The work atmosphere at Alternatives is professional yet comfortable.  We offer flexible schedules to assist students.

Alternatives conducts substance abuse and mental health treatment under contract with the U.S. Probation Office for clients on Federal probation, parole, or Pre-Trial.  Treatment clients are also referred by the courts, their lawyers, or may be self referred.  Alternatives conducts education groups as part of court diversion programs including Pretrial Intervention.  Alternatives provides assessment services for agency and legal referrals.  Individual and couples counseling are offered under an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) contract.

Alternatives team members practice a systems approach to supervision by encouraging a collaborative effort between staff and students to define the learning experience in terms of short and long term learning goals.  We seek to provide a balance between clinical supervision to help students enhance their competencies as counselors and administrative supervision to help students identify and perform organizational and role responsibilities.  Clinical supervision is viewed as a.) helping the student develop skill in determining the dynamics of the client as pertains to the presenting problem and b.) helping the student develop awareness of one’s use of self in the counseling intervention, one’s biases, and one’s impact on others.

TRAINING STRENGTHS:
Variety in staff background and training:


Specialty areas:

TYPE OF FACILITY: TYPE OF CLIENTS: REPRESENTATIVE PRESENTING PROBLEMS: GROUPS AVAILABLE:
Approximately 30 hours of groups are scheduled each week, many of which run concurrently.  Most groups last 2 hours and are scheduled between 6 and 8 p.m. on weeknights.  Several groups are in weekday morning or midday slots, and one group is on Saturday morning.  All groups have a strong didactic component focusing on cognitive behavioral, emotion regulation, and interpersonal skills training.

    Available education groups are:

    Available treatment groups are: SUPERVISOR DEGREES: HOURS AVAILABLE: APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS: NUMBER OF AVAILABLE PRACTICUM SLOTS: NUMBER OF INTERNSHIP SLOTS:
One to three slots available.