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Glenwood Life Counseling Center
Admissions Information:
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Address: 516 Glenwood Avenue, Baltimore, MD, Phone: (410) 323-9811x Fax: Email: Website: Services: Substance abuse treatment, Detoxification, Methadone Maintenance for persons with co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders, persons with HIV/AIDS, pregnant/postpartum women, women, men Location: MAP
Glenwood Life Counseling Center, Inc.
History and Scope of Services
November 2004
Mission: To deliver quality, medication-assisted treatment to opiate addicted adults in the least restrictive, most respectful manner possible.
Glenwood Life Counseling Center, Inc. is a private, not-for-profit, 501 (c), (3) organization, established in 1971 to provide treatment services to narcotic addicts in the Baltimore metropolitan area.
We believe that addiction is a complex, chronic and sometimes, fatal illness, which can be successfully treated. We believe that given time and sufficient support services, a motivated individual can achieve an illicit drug free lifestyle.
We provide clients with individual, group and/or family counseling in conjunction with a stable dose of methadone, which eliminates withdrawal symptoms and reduces craving for narcotics. Beginning with an orientation group, clients are offered a wide range of groups that include workshops on reading and writing, relapse prevention, meditation, current events, drug-specific groups for marijuana, cocaine and alcohol, art therapy, life skills, HIV prevention and education, medical issues, and multi-family sessions.
Limited medical services are offered on-site and referrals are made to other medical providers as needed. HIV testing is strongly encouraged and, along with pre- and post-test counseling, is also provided on-site free of charge. Though not currently available on-site, we do recommend that patients be tested for the hepatitis C.
To a limited extent, Glenwood has assisted clients in preparing for and obtaining employment. We recently received a grant from Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems, Inc. to collaborate with two workforce development providers, Strive and Goodwill Industries, and three other treatment programs, REACH Mobile health Services, The Counseling Center, and Echo House Substance Abuse Treatment Program, to improve and expand this service. While this is a pilot project, we expect to secure additional funding from both governmental and private foundation sources to continue this important work.
Glenwood Life Center, in collaboration with Baltimore City Health Department Field Services Office, also receives a grant to provide medication to home or institution-bound patients who are already enrolled in a City treatment program. This service is available to patients in all of the City’s medication-assisted treatment programs. Individual doses are prepared at Glenwood and picked-up on Tuesdays and Thursdays for delivery by the emergency medical technicians employed by Field Services.
Recognizing that many of our patients have serious mental health issues in conjunction with their narcotic addiction, we are attempting to secure additional funding to provide psychiatric services on-site. This has become an increasing problem and an unmet need over the past several years. If funded, this will allow us to better assist our patients with co-occurring mental health problems.
Though we are housed in a newly renovated facility located in Govans, off of the 5200 block of York Road, the amount of space available is inadequate. We currently have 600 patients in treatment at Glenwood Life Center, in a building was designed to serve 400. We recently received final approval for a grant of $ 658,000 from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Administration-Sponsored Capital Program to construct a 6,000 square-foot addition to the existing structure. Plans are now under way to raise the remaining $ 350,000 needed to pay for the construction.
Our funding comes for several sources. Government grants account for 71 % of our $2.2 million annual budget. Contracts with managed care organizations make up an additional 23 %, while the remaining 6 % comes from client fees and contributions. Our plan is to do more in the area of fundraising.
Our staff consists of a part-time psychiatrist, who serves as medical director; a full-time nursing supervisor; a full-time clinical director, who is a licensed clinical social worker; a full-time AIDS information coordinator; a full-time management information systems / quality assurance specialist; a full-time administrator; and a full-time executive director. We also have 3 full-time and 5 part-time nurses; a full-time physician assistant; 15 full-time and 2 part-time certified addictions counselors (many of whom are master’s level); and 7 full-time support staff.
We strive to work with the community in which Glenwood resides. We have staff representatives on many of the community improvement associations as well as the local business association. We participate in activities aimed at improving the quality of life for area residents and contribute to programs targeted to the youth - we are an annual contributor to the Summer Music and Dance Camp sponsored by the Govans Economic Management Senate (GEMS). For the past year, we have worked with the University of Maryland’s Community Law Center, the Citizens Planning and Housing Association and the Baltimore City Substance Abuse Directorate to develop a set of “best practices” from which treatment providers and communities can work collaboratively.
Our Board of Directors is a diverse group of individuals who care about substance abuse treatment in Baltimore. They include a circuit court judge, a resident of the community, a retired chief U.S. probation officer, a banker, a social worker, an attorney, a client, a community leader, and others who work tirelessly to sustain and improve our services. We are constantly seeking to expand and improve our board.
Glenwood Life Counseling Center is certified by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Office of Health Care Quality. We are also accredited by the Commission for the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF).
ABOUT
Glenwood Life Counseling CenterGlenwood Life is one of the most established opioid agonist programs in Maryland with over 33 years of continuous operations. It is a State of Maryland and CARF certified ambulatory opioid agonist treatment program. The clinic treats over 600 patients; 44% are female, 69% African-American, and 31% Caucasian. Approximately 28% of the patients use cocaine regularly and 10% have an alcohol problem.
The program provides individual and group drug abuse counseling, HIV assessment and risk-reduction counseling, and a limited amount of family-based therapy. The program has recently implemented a needs-based care system which ranges from several hours per week of counseling for patients who are doing poorly in treatment to one visit per month for the highly stable patients. The program has adequate licensed on-site medical and nursing staff, including a half time psychiatrist/medical director, 5 LPNs and a full time physician’s assistant. The clinic employs 17 full-time counselors with an average caseload of 40. Eight of the counselors have master’s degrees and nine have bachelor’s. There is a full time HIV coordinator and a part-time vocational counselor.
Program leadership is provided by Mr. Frank Satterfield, a college educated program director who has worked in the field for the past 32 years. He has been the director of Glenwood Life for over 19 years. Mr. Satterfield is a talented and informed leader who has built a relatively small program of opioid agonist treatment into a large center by establishing new revenue lines with Managed Care Organizations that resulted in significant treatment capacity expansion. He is currently overseeing enlargement of the treatment program’s building. Mr. Satterfield is also well-respected in the treatment community and has served as President and Treasurer of several organizations of substance abuse treatment providers in Baltimore and Maryland.
Glenwood Life participated in John Ball’s study of methadone treatment (Ball & Ross, 1991). It collaborated with Dr. Schwartz in the Baltimore City drug treatment outcome study (Johnson, et al., 2003) and in a recently completed study of probationers in methadone treatment. Under Mr. Satterfield’s able leadership, Glenwood successfully participated in the CTN study of Motivational Incentive Therapy in Methadone Programs (CTN 007).
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