This story is part of our Path Forward initiative in which we dig into our community's most pressing issues, including how the region recovers from the opioid crisis.
“What it’s going to do for us is give us another level,” Woodhaven President Jade Chandler said. “The one level of care that we see a great need for … is the partial hospitalization level.”
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Partial hospitalization — or PHP as it’s called — offers a level of care in-between residential and outpatient treatment, both of which Woodhaven already offers.
Clients get at least 20 hours of programming a week at the treatment center, but have unstructured hours in the evening in which they can leave to go to a job, volunteer somewhere or attend 12-step meetings in the community.
“That’s going to be a game changer for us because that’s the one level that we’ve been missing,” Chandler said. “We think it’s going to improve our success rates.”
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Clients will be able to easily transition from residential to PHP to outpatient services, slowly gaining more freedom to re-integrate into normal life.
Addiction experts say that transition is important so that former addicts don’t leave treatment and go back to their same living situations, around people who might still be using or dealing drugs.
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Several other treatment centers in the region offer partial hospitalization treatment, including Beckett Springs locations in Centerville and West Chester.
“Patients often enter a PHP after being an inpatient, and the PHP is used as a step-down in the intensity of services provided,” according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. “In other cases, a person may be admitted to a PHP because they have relapses in their drug use and more intensive services are needed to re-stabilize the person.”
In order to add the new services, Woodhaven has been renovating unused medical space on a different floor inside the former St. Elizabeth's Hospital near U.S. 35 and Edwin C. Moses Boulevard.
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“This has been our focus for the last two years,” Chandler said.
Woodhaven’s existing men’s residential clients will move into the newly redone space and the new partial hospitalization clients will be housed where the men currently live. Women residential clients will remain in their current space.
The private company raised the money for the project over the past two years.
The Path Forward: Addiction in Dayton
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- » A day with Dayton's overdose response team
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