Professionalism: Mother of Responsible Practice

The initial enchantment with the natural insight of the indigeneous paraprofessionsl is reexamined in this article. Funding has been cut from mental health programs whose originators and employees are too close to their work to examine its effectiveness objectively. Rather than viewing professionalism as an unfeeling state, the author recognizes it as an advanced stage of growth for the former paraprofessional who has sacrificed to realize his potential. If the job of preparing the paraprofessional for his work in the mental health field is to be done without diminution of quality, professionals must bear the responsibility for seeing that quality in practice, which comes only from workers who know themselves and have an adequate knowledge of psychodynamics, keeps pace with the increase in quantity common to programs utilizing local residents whose presence in a program tends to attract many neighborhood participants. (Author/PC)