Treatment home for mothers fighting substance abuse coming to Roanoke City

Roanoke, Virginia – There will soon be a new treatment facility in the Roanoke Valley that will assist mothers who are struggling with drug addiction and their infants.

This new housing complex on Patterson Avenue is being developed by a coalition of organizations, one of which is Anderson Treatment.

Mothers will receive treatment from Anderson Treatment. Medication-assisted therapies and group therapy are a couple of the therapeutic options. Pediatricians will also provide care for babies. According to Chief Compliance Officer Ali Hamed-Moore, the center is crucial, particularly for Southwest Virginia.

“The rate of overdoses among pregnant women has increased[steadily] since 2015. Roanoke City remains in the highest number of localities of children regarding children in foster care. So, we know that moms and their babies need treatment and recovery together,” said Hamed-Moore.

To provide services, Restoration Housing, which makes investments in older, historically significant homes and areas, will own the house and rent it out. Additionally, the house is now being restored. According to the group, financing of roughly $400,000 is required to finish the project.

“There’s a lot of work. This house is actually in really great condition compared to the other houses that we restored. It’s in incredible condition, but it needs these updated rehab components to make it fully compatible with the treatment facility,” said Executive Director Isabel Thornton with Anderson Treatment.

The teams working on the residential treatment center said they began discussing the possibility of reopening Bethany Hall’s services, which had ceased years before, approximately a year ago.

“Bethany Hall was a fixture in the community for 50 years that served a really important need for moms and their babies, and this community coalition of folks wanted to get together recognizing with its closure that there was a gap in services,” said Hamed-Moore.

According to Thornton, there has been a great sense of urgency to restore something akin to Bethany Hall to the community since it closed.

“I think people working in the treatment and recovery world. People working with women that have high-risk pregnancies just seeing this gap in services and wanting to bring them back to the community,” said Thornton.

Additionally, according to Hamed-Moore, the Commonwealth only has two other programs that provide comparable services.

“One of them is in Richmond and the other ones are in the Eastern Shore. So, it’s really important to have a program like this on this side of the state to serve the Roanoke Valley and deeper Southwest Virginia,” said Hamed-Moore.

To receive treatment, sixteen moms and their infants will reside in the home for roughly six months, however, this can vary depending on the requirements of the mother and child. It is hoped that next year, the first families will come here for treatment.

“I hope that they’re met with good quality treatment and not shame and stigma. So, that they can get quality care and be fully present loving parents and that their babies get all of their needs met and mothers are attended to in that critical time after they give birth,” said Hamed-Moore.