ATI Head of Addiction Studies Department

Mr Stephen Rowen

Stephen Rowen is a native of Boston, Massachusetts where he grew up in an Irish American family. After attending local schools, he attended and graduated from Stonehill College with a BA in History in 1970. Two years later he received his master’s degree the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work where he was trained as a community organizer with a special emphasis on assisting local citizen groups mobilize for better health care.

His career in addiction services began in 1975 when he selected to be the director of Day One, Maine’s first adolescent addiction treatment programme in Portland. Stephen and his family first lived in Ireland in 1978 when he was named administrator of Rutland Centre – the first Minnesota Model residential treatment centre in Ireland. Following the successful establishment of Rutland Centre, Stephen moved to Cape Cod (1980) where he worked primarily in private practice.

This stage of his career also included completing a three-year advanced course on group psychotherapy as well as advanced training in organizational development and conflict management & succession planning in family owned businesses. He moved back to Dublin with his family when he was invited to return to the Rutland Centre as its director at the time of the millennium. His retirement from Rutland Centre in the summer of 2008 was with a view to devote more time to teaching, training, clinical supervision & in order to establish a private psychotherapy practice. Stephen also to continues to be a spokesperson on societal issues and public policy as these pertain to addiction and substance misuse in Ireland.