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November 30, 2011

Funding for Dalton addiction treatment center in doubt

Charles Oliver charlesoliver@daltoncitizen.com

— Highland Rivers CEO Jason Bearden says the past couple of weeks have been a “roller coaster” for staff and patients at the New Hope Women’s Center in Dalton.

The center provides residential alcohol and drug abuse treatment for about a half dozen women and their children, and outpatient treatment to 15 to 20 more women and their children.

But that program and the Women’s Outreach Center that Highland Rivers runs in Rome are funded by the federal Temporary Assistance to Families in Need (TANF) program, which expired earlier this year.

“The program was up for renewal back in June, but it wasn’t renewed. I don’t think there was an actual vote, and nobody knew about it. I don’t think the state found out about it until early or late fall. But the cut actually took place July 1, so the state was three months or so into their fiscal year and had spent that money. And by the time we found out we were almost six months in,” Bearden said. “They came to us and said, ‘We are going to have to cut deeper to make up for the money we’ve already spent.’”

But just two days later state officials told Highland Rivers they had found money elsewhere in the budget to keep funding the Dalton and Rome programs until June 30, 2012.

“We had told the women we serve, ‘In four weeks you have to find another place to live and find a new treatment plan and find a way to stay away from the issues you have to deal with,’” Bearden said. “And of course, we had told our staff they were out of a job as of Jan 1. Two days later, we tell them that everything is on hold until July.”

Highland Rivers offers mental health, substance abuse and developmental disabilities services in 11 Georgia counties, including Whitfield and Murray. The agency’s executive offices are in Dalton.

Bearden said Highland Rivers runs one of the largest combined residential and outpatient addiction programs in the state.

“Many programs across the state have just one or the other. They have the residential without the outpatient or the outpatient without the residential,” he said.

Data provided by Highland Rivers show that 71 percent of those who take part in the residential program have a job before they leave the program and 79 percent who complete the outpatient program have a job. In addition, 100 percent of pregnant mothers who complete both programs deliver drug-free babies.

Conasauga Drug Court Coordinator Michele Pirkle said if the New Hope center is closed it will make it harder for Drug Court to offer women charged with drug offenses an alternative to prison.

“It’s a very valuable resource. We refer several women a year to them, usually young mothers with addiction problems,” she said. “If it closes, it means that we would have to look for resources outside our community, and in some cases those are a considerable distance away.”

Whitfield County Juvenile Court Judge Connie Blaylock said New Hope has helped reunite many women with their children.

“A large portion of the time, maybe a majority, when children have been removed from their parents and placed in foster care or with other family members it is because of drug problems,” she said. “It has been very beneficial to have a local program with both inpatient and outpatient care to help those mothers work through their issues and be reunited with their children.”

In addition to drug treatment, New Hope provides family counseling, parenting classes, anger management classes, help with job searches and nursing assessments for the women it treats and their children.

Data provided by Highland Rivers show the average cost of the program is $5.48 a day per patient for outpatient services and $10.11 a day for residential services.

“The good news is that we have six months to make a case for these programs, and I think we can show that they are more cost effective than prison or foster care,” Bearden said.

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