- SHARI SHEPARD
- Posted On
Redwood Community Services HOME Program offers a new direction for mothers
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – A local organization is offering a unique program to help women address substance abuse issues while keeping their families together.
The Health Opportunities in Mothering Experiences – or HOME – Program, a drug rehabilitation service for mothers, has now been open long enough to see some of its first beneficiaries graduate.
The program is located at Redwood Community Services in Lower Lake and provides mothers suffering from drug and/or alcohol addiction intensive outpatient rehabilitation services and childcare classes aimed at nurturing more healthy parental relationships.
Redwood Community Services staff hint at some success stories even though not everyone who participated in the program’s inaugural cohort has completed treatment.
Due to the confidential nature of treatment they can’t give too many details.
In order to enroll in the program, supervisor Jillian Barna said, “They need to be mothers who have children who are 17 and under or pregnant.”
She wants prospective applicants to know that mothers don’t necessarily have to have custody of their children in order to be eligible.
“They can be working on regaining custody of their children,” she said.
Participation in the program requires four months of one-on-one counseling and includes group therapy and experiential learning.
It is the kind of care that many outpatients facing substance abuse issues need but it is hard to come by in Lake County.
Before HOME opened its doors, Lake County had no program to meet the needs of this complex population: women with young children facing the dissolution of their families because of substance abuse.
Barna said the program’s beneficiaries are often dealing with addictions to alcohol or illegal drugs that are too advanced for them to handle on their own but not bad enough to require inpatient rehabilitation.
At that point it could be too late. Mothers could be looking at jail time or putting their children into foster care.
HOME is designed to help mothers before it’s too late and offers comprehensive assistance so that they can complete the program requirements.
The program provides childcare and transportation assistance where needed. “We want to make sure that women that would benefit from the service aren’t deterred by those barriers,” said Willow Anderson, who works in communications and outreach at RCS.
The program is covered through most major insurance policies carried in Lake County but offers enrollees assistance applying for health insurance if necessary.
“We have done this already,” said Barna. “We’ll take them over to Social Services. We’ll walk them through the process of doing the paperwork that they need to do to get their medical.”
In addition, Barna said, “If they don’t qualify for medical … then we will help them get somebody that can provide services to them.”
When the program first started Barna reached out to the community for toy donations for participants’ children to play with while they attend counseling and parenting classes.
While the toys are still needed, Anderson and Barna suggest a need for something much more significant: allies.
Barna said, “I think there’s a lot of stigma that carries through with these women… so it’s helpful to know that there are places in the community that are willing to embrace the fact that they’ve gone through a very good program, are making positive choices, and are willing to give them a try.”
Anderson emphasized that businesses within the community willing to accept work referrals from the program would be the most helpful.
“When we have a mother who is in need of housing, in need of employment, having connections throughout the community to be able to come here and go through treatment, we then want to be able to connect them to positive resources and give them a hand up so that they’re able to be successful,” she said.
The HOME Program is located at 16170 Main St., Suite F, in Lower Lake.
For more information call 707-994-5486.
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