A new chapter in addiction recovery is coming to Buckhannon this fall, as WestCare prepares to open its first West Virginia men’s residential facility on North Locust Street — bringing 24/7 substance abuse support and transitional services to the heart of Upshur County.
WestCare plans to open its new facility in October.
Stephen Wright, chief operating officer of the Appalachian region, said the new Locust Street location is the company’s first in the Mountain State.
“WestCare is a behavioral health organization, and we’ve been in existence over 50 years now,” Wright said. “We originally started in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now we are in 17 states and three U.S. territories.”
Wright provided a fuller picture of WestCare’s services.
“Across the agency, we cover everything within behavioral health, so everything from homeless shelters, residential treatments, HIV programs, youth prevention — you name it, somewhere in the country we’re doing that type of project,” he said.
WestCare took an interest in establishing a location in Buckhannon after officials from Community Care of West Virginia expressed a need for services here.
“Community Care reached out to us because we have a relationship – we’ve worked together on projects in the past – and there’s an opportunity here and a need,” Wright said. “Residential care is not really something that they do, and they know we are an agency that has done that work, so they reached out to us. We came up and saw there was a need.”
The facility in Buckhannon will be a men’s residential substance abuse facility.
“It will have two levels of care; there’s high intensity treatment, and that means the individual is receiving a high frequency of service, and then those in the bottom building will still have clinical services every day, but there is the ability for them to go work, so it’s a transitional place,” Wright said. “That’s when we start to look at getting their family involved, do more case management, and look at next steps. Do they want to go to school? How do we connect them to go back to school? What other assistance do they need?”
Treatment in the high-intensity section of the facility will last approximately 30 days. There is no time limit for individuals receiving transitional services; however, they typically stay for three to six months.
“It is not a detox facility; when you come in, we’re going to do an assessment, and then that assessment is going to show us what level of care that person needs – not everyone who has a substance use issue is necessarily going to need this level of care, it may be below that,” Wright said. “If so, we’re going to make the appropriate referral, because medication-assisted treatment may be the best option for you. Then there are people who need a higher level of care, meaning they need medical withdrawal. We’re also going to make that referral for them, and after medical withdrawal, then they would step down.”
WestCare provides meals for their residents, snacks and laundry facilities.
“I would say we’re at 80 percent finished with all the renovations. We still have some room work to do on the rooms down at the bottom part. We’re still looking to convert some of these rooms into recreation rooms as well,” Wright said. “It’s important for clients to have things to do in the evening. After hours, we don’t want them to have to go back and sit in their room every night. You need to learn to socialize, to do normal things.”
The facility will be able to house about 56 individuals in total.
“Our mission is to help with the problems that are here in the area,” Wright said. “Even if we are not necessarily what they need, we can come in, assist them, and link them to services.”
