Lifeline Connections center to help moms in recovery

Columbian - 7/25/2018

July 25--Lifeline Connections is getting closer to opening a Vancouver-based program for low-income mothers with drug and alcohol problems.

The Pregnant and Parenting Women's program will open around September as part of the Women's Recovery Center, a women-only center for substance abuse treatment. It's been a couple of years in the making.

"We're working with a lot of different departments and that takes time," said Lifeline CEO Jared Sanford.

The program involves the state Department of Health, the Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery and the Department of Early Learning. Lifeline has been readying a building in central Vancouver to house women and their children who will be treated individually and as a family.

"The benefits to society are hard to calculate," Sanford said. "Sometimes, substance use disorders can be generational."

Pregnant and Parenting Women's programs around the state are aimed at getting the mothers to turn their life around and stop the pattern of addiction from repeating itself. The next closest facilities are in Longview and Portland. Gov. Jay Inslee announced a five-year plan in May to shift away from large behavioral and mental health institutions to smaller, community-based facilities such as the Women's Recovery Center.

Women in treatment may or may not have custody of their children. Some will give birth while in treatment.

Trista Dunford, child care supervisor, said the facility will have an infant child care room and there will be social/emotional curriculum for toddlers to develop skills in a setting similar to preschool. When mothers are getting close to exiting treatment, they'll volunteer in the child care rooms. Lifeline is also purchasing a van for outings where mothers learn to positively engage with their children.

"Children participate in a variety of activities to help them learn and grow physically, emotionally and cognitively including whole group activities, art, outdoor play, science and more," Dunford said in an email.

The program will have space for 17 low-income moms and about 18 children. Women will typically stay for six months at a cost of $215 per day per woman, which will be covered by Medicaid, Sanford said.

"I don't think we'll have an issue keeping our beds full," he said.

Lifeline purchased the building at 2924 Falk Road in May for $1.4 million from Janus Youth Programs. Lifeline was originally going to lease part of the building for the Pregnant and Parenting Women's program but had the opportunity to purchase the whole property -- which meant they could add a women's residential treatment program.

Sanford said he aims to open that part of the Women's Recovery Center by the end of this year. There will be 14 beds for women. Between July 1, 2017 and the end of June, Lifeline Connections saw 468 women go through treatment (some more than once).

Lifeline has operated a coed 44-bed facility since 2008 at the Clark County Center for Community Health, which will become a men-only facility after the transition.

"When you have mixed genders, that can cause a lack of focus sometimes when engaged in treatment," Sanford said. Having separate facilities for men and women will result in "better treatment outcomes," he said.

The Pregnant and Parenting Women's program and the other residential treatment program will have separate spaces and different treatment schedules. Between the two programs, Lifeline plans to employ between 20 and 25 people including nurses, recovery coaches, therapists, supervisors and other support staff.

The property used to house Janus's Oak Grove Youth Shelter, which has since closed, and Daybreak Youth Services's residential treatment program for boys. Daybreak opened the 30,000-square-foot, 43-bed RWC Center for Adolescent Recovery for boys and girls in Brush Prairie.

Janus Youth Programs' Executive Director Dennis Morrow said his agency consolidated Vancouver's two youth shelters into one, the Oak Bridge Youth Shelter off Burton Road.

"From our standpoint, it's a better, more highly staffed center," he said.

Oak Grove was a secure crisis residential center, where children were locked inside, and Oak Bridge is a nonsecure facility. He said there's been a philosophical shift away from secure shelters.

Anyone interested in supporting the Pregnant and Parenting Women's program should contact Jeri Shumate, fund development director, at 360-397-8246, ext. 7548.

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