Lifeline Connections will soon have separate residential treatment facilities for men and women with substance use disorders.
The nonprofit treatment provider has operated a coed 44-bed facility since 2008 at the Clark County Center for Community Health. Although the ratio of men to women fluctuates, there are typically more men, said Shannon Edgel, Lifeline’s marketing specialist.
Lifeline purchased a building off Falk Road in May for $1.4 million that will become known as the Women’s Recovery Center. It will house a program for pregnant and parenting women on one side and a women’s residential treatment program on the other.
Having a women-specific program is “especially critical for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault who may be uncomfortable or unwilling to address these issues in a mixed-gender environment,” Lifeline said in a news release.
“The less distraction people have in treatment, the better for everybody,” Edgel said. “It solves a lot of problems.”
The Community Foundation for Southwest Washington recently gave Lifeline a $25,000 grant to launch a gender-specific program for women. The money will be used to purchase furniture and equipment.
“By having a dedicated treatment setting for women, we can better address their medical, behavioral and psychological needs,” Jared Sanford, Lifeline’s chief executive officer, said in the news release.
Renovation work is still underway at the Women’s Recovery Center. Edgel wasn’t sure the exact number of residential treatment beds that will be added, but said that the Pregnant and Parenting Women’s program will have 16.
When the center opens, all the women in coed treatment will move there and all 44 beds at the Center for Community Health will be for men only.
