Relationship between addiction counsellors characteristics and development of competencies in rehabilitation facilities in central and Nairobi regions, Kenya

The regaining of the social and personal competencies lost during the alcoholic’s life is critical in the rehabilitation process and is instrumental in prevention of relapsing back into alcoholism. An understanding of how addiction counsellors characteristics influence the development of competencies among recovering alcoholics is therefore key to their reintegration into society. The range of competencies include specific skills and abilities to general constructs such as self-esteem that reflect an improved adjustment to deal with issues in the family, school, work and in society at large The study adopted behavioural, Adlerian and person centred theories for its theoretical framework. The study employed the ex-post- facto correlational research design with an accessible population of 202 recovering alcoholics and 81 addiction counsellors in 17 rehabilitation facilities in Central and Nairobi regions employing the 12 step facilitation approach. Census sampling method was used for the addiction counsellors with the entire population participating in the study. A sample size of 134 respondents calculated using Yamane simplified formula was used for the recovering alcoholics. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire for the recovering alcoholics and addiction counsellors. The instruments were validated and adjustments done after the pilot study, while reliability was determined using the Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient at 0.860. The data was analysed using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. Pearson correlations were used to test the relationship between the dependent variable (recovering alcoholics competencies) and the independent variable (addiction counsellors characteristics). Addiction counsellors characteristics were established to be statistically significant at p=0.000<0.05 with a strong positive association (r=0.649). The study recommends the need for rehabilitation centres engaging addiction counsellors’ with better understanding of the rehabilitation process as well as strengthening counselling services in an attempt to improve recovering competencies of the alcoholics in their facilities.