New Leadership, New Programs Bring Wayside House Into New Era of Addiction Treatment for Women, By Women
Delray Beach, FL (PRWEB) July 16, 2013 -- It’s hidden in plain sight. It’s a mix of history and hope for the future. The average person driving through downtown Delray Beach would be unlikely to notice the historic cottage just blocks from the busy, bustling downtown area. But Wayside House is a well-known oasis, a place for triumph over addiction for many of the hundreds of women who have passed through its doors.
Now, 40 years after it started, Wayside House, under new leadership, is thriving with its holistic approach that affords its clients everything from equine and horticulture therapy to art, yoga and meditation. Trips to the nearby beach are also a great enticement for resident clients during their 90-day program.
This new approach to services was brought to the facility by its new Executive Director Cathy Cohn, who has been a beacon in Palm Beach County’s nonprofit community for more than two decades. Ms. Cohn served as executive director of Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies of Palm Beach County for 20 years before coming to Wayside House in April. Her previous work with under-served pregnant women primed her to work with yet another organization geared exclusively to women.
Founded in 1974 by the great niece and namesake of women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony, Wayside House provides services and programs specifically tailored to women facing issues of alcohol and drug addiction. It is a shining example of a program by women, for women.
As women in recovery, Anthony and Phyllis Michelfelder started Wayside House with $1,000 which they used to purchase the white frame cottage which remains the heart of the organization that admitted its first residential client in 1975.
Today, Wayside House is a modern campus of buildings maintaining a tranquil home-like environment. It has a full clinical staff, consulting psychiatrist and on-site registered nurse, serving 31 residential clients with a modern, comprehensive clinical program that is responsive to the specific needs of women with addictions and their families. It is one of the few programs remaining that offers a full 90-day treatment program.
The program also helps women gain self-esteem, strength, coping skills and goals to help keep them sober once they leave the program. They receive help in job training and searches and families and friends can visit on weekends so that the process of reconnecting women with their loved ones can begin while they are in the program. There’s even a colorful, new playground for the children of clients.
The program provides a holistic approach, complete with activities usually only available at more costly centers. In addition to a program based on the 12-step model, clients can engage in yoga, meditation, art, and horticulture and equine therapies. New gardens are being planted with the guidance of a horticultural therapist who once was a client at the facility. The lush lawns will soon give way to flowers, plants, herbs and vegetables to be planted and maintained by the residents.
The facility also has staff trained in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), which is used to help those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Many who have faced a severe trauma remain stuck in reliving it. This therapy helps them to process these distressing memories, reducing their lingering effects and allowing them to develop more adaptive coping mechanisms.
Through its Outpatient Services department, Wayside House is a contracted partner in the Intervention Project for Nurses (IPN). Established in 1983, through a state of Florida legislative act, IPN ensures public health and safety by providing a network of support to nurses who struggle with alcohol and drug abuse. The IPN was conceived as a way of rehabilitating and re-licensing nurses in order to retain, retrain or re-engage them in the health care field. Facilitated by a Wayside House clinician, the group is continuous so that women may join at any time. Each member of the Nurses Support Group is issued her own contract through the IPN program. This contract is individualized and determines that client’s specific length of treatment.
Recognizing that one addiction can give way to another, therapies also deal with co-occurring conditions, including eating disorders, depression, trauma and other issues.
Once they successfully complete the residential program, women can move on to the intensive outpatient program, returning from halfway houses or other settings to sessions three days per week at Wayside House. Because the goal is helping women maintain sobriety and become physically and emotionally healthy, Wayside House also provides further outpatient therapy and an after-care program weekly for a year.
As part of its outpatient services program, Wayside House clinicians conduct individual assessments of any woman 18 and older in the community with an addiction history and who is at the time of the assessment sober, but in need of help in sustaining sobriety.
Wayside House’s clients come from a wide variety of referral sources. Those wanting to shed their addiction come to us on their own; family and friends refer them, as do detox centers, doctors, hospitals, and clinicians.
The extraordinary beautiful, tropical setting provides a safe and peaceful backdrop for women and its South Florida location is a lure for women in other states seeking help for their addictions. (Visits to the beach are among the rewards clients earn during their recovery efforts.) Many come to us when they have been unsuccessful in other programs.
Marlene Passell, journalist and president of Media & Communications Management Services, is the communications consultant for Wayside House. For further information on Wayside House, please call (561) 278-5500 or see our website at http://www.waysidehouse.net.
Marlene Passell, Wayside House, http://www.waysidehouse.net, +1 561-642-0849, [email protected]
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