At the Elizabeth Upjohn Community Healing Center, the group sessions for children who have suffered sexual abuse are especially poignant. I hear them say “I like coming here”, and see them skipping down the hall holding their therapist’s hand. They have written in brightly colored markers a list entitled “What Kids Need” and posted it on the therapy room wall. The list includes simple requests: Safety, “protexion”, my mom, not to be so scared, someplace to play...and of course Pizza!  These kids find relief in bringing their secrets out of the shadows, and are thankful to be listened to and believed.

Expressions of gratitude occasionally find their way to my mailbox. Most recently, there was a note from a friend - “You may have saved my son’s life. The individual therapy, group, and family support has been a miracle. My son may be 37 years old, but he is still my child. Keep up the great work.  Thank you.” 
Another carefully written note arrived from Sandra, who is in our Women’s Specialty Program:  “Thank you for everything Community Healing Centers does to help women like me.  Miss Marian makes sure we have everything we need to stay clean and sober.  Even if I have to call her six times a day, she will hear me out...and then give me another idea about how to stay away from drugs. And she sees to it I get to all my doctor’s appointments on time.”

Weeks ago, the front desk buzzed me to say I had a visitor, with her baby, in the lobby. There’s nothing like the word “baby” to get my attention, so I scurried down the stairs. There was Julie, with her 6 month old son asleep in her arms. Of course I got to hold the baby while she told me how things were going.  Her son Noah had been born clean, she was off probation, graduated from Drug Court and found a job working nights in a warehouse part time. She had managed to get custody back of her 4 year old, file a personal protection order against her violent boyfriend, and still attended the Women’s Specialty group for support.  Oh yes, and she was volunteering for the United Way campaign. Julie wanted me to know how grateful she was for the help and support she had been given. Then she hurried off to catch the bus so shecould give plasma again to help make ends meet.

The wall outside the kitchen at Jim Gilmore Community Healing Center is covered with letters, notes and photos of thanks. Phrases like “you saved my life”, “you guys gave me the tools”, “my therapist really helped me find the core of my problem”.  There is a special story of gratitude “to the nurse that sat with me in detox with a cool cloth on my forehead, until I could fall asleep”. When people are at their lowest, small acts of care can mean the most.

All these moments of gratitude are brought to us by folks like you. This caring community of donors, volunteers and sponsors makes it possible. We cannot thank you enough...but we will keep trying!

In Gratitude,

Sally Reames, CEO  
Community Healing Centers

Comments or thoughts? Send Sally an email by clicking here .

Thank you to all the generous individuals and businesses in our communities!  Roof Sit has raised $82,451 to date, and that number keeps growing.   WKFR Disc Jockeys and our therapists sleep and broadcast from the roof of Helzberg Diamonds and Hairmasters for 3 days, helping to raise money for programs that treat and prevent child abuse and neglect.

This year, those three days were filled with fun events including the Carrabba’s Italian Grill kick-off dinner and auction, Family Fun night, and the Glamorous Girlfriends Party.   We are so grateful to all of our sponsor, our volunteers, and the donors.

While all of this was going on at the Roof Sit site, hundreds of volunteers were out at the Shell gas stations, pumping gas and washing windshields for tips.  Tips for Kids raised $13,584.  The en fuego Student Ministries and Portage Central High School Athletes raised $2,290, Galesburg Shell employees raised $1,551, Kalamazoo Outlaws Semi-pro Football team raised $1,474, and the Kalamazoo Public Safety Department raised $1,386.  For a list of all the Tips for Kids Teams, go to roofsit.com.

Prior to Roof Sit, the athletes at Kids Gym raised $3,000 in a cart-wheel-a-thon, and the Kalamazoo Metro Bowling Association raised $1,404 in a Bowling Sweeper Tournament.

The funds raised at Roof Sit benefit children and families who live right here in our community by receiving help from the Children’s Advocacy Center and Infant and Children’s Services programs.

The Children's Advocacy Center (CAC) offers compassionate, specialized care for children who are victims of sexual or physical abuse. The goals of the CAC are to reduce the traumatic effects of abuse; protect children from maltreatment; seek justice for child victims; and investigate abuse as a team, while keeping the comfort and safety of the child the first priority.  CAC therapists, physicians, police, prosecutors and victim advocates work together to help the child and their family through the legal process as well as the healing process.  In order to minimize the trauma a child experiences from having to repeat the events of the sexual abuse many times, the child may be interviewed, for the purposes of law enforcement, in the caring environment of the CAC, by a specially trained counselor.  The interview is taped for the purpose of prosecuting the abuser.  Each year we provide these services to at least 220 new children, in addition to those that are already in treatment.

The Infant and Parent Services programs offer in-home support for families with young children 0-6 years old.  We provide help with parental risk factors such as teen parents, unstable housing, addiction, poverty, lack of family support or parenting knowledge.  We promote optimal social, emotional, cognitive and physical development for infants, toddlers and preschoolers, while strengthening the family unit.

These services are provided to families at no cost.

Planning for Roof Sit 2012 will begin in the fall.  If you would like to join the Roof Sit planning committee, contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Coming Together conference unites community professionals on addiction and recovery

May conference brought national experts and authors to Kalamazoo

There is an old children’s fable about blind men and an elephant:  one grabs hold of the leg and declares the elephant is very much like a tree; another holds the trunk and says it is like a snake; another holds the ear and says it’s like a fan; and still another pushes up against its side and affirms the elephant is like a wall. They are each correct, but only partly so.

And so it is with addiction and recovery. Medical professionals experience it one way. Social workers another.Educators another. Police another. And lawyers still another.

For the first time, over 250 of these professionals who all deal with the causes and impacts of substance use disorder came together at a daylong conference at the Fetzer Center on Western Michigan University’s campus. Appropriately, the event was called, Coming Together: A Community Conference on Addiction and Recovery, and its mission was to build a collaboration among a cross-section of professionals and to promote an open conversation and understanding of addiction without stigma and judgment.

Headlining the event were three nationally renowned experts and authors, plus some of the area’s leading professionals in treatment and recovery. The conference was hosted by the Community Healing Centers, the Drug Treatment Court Foundation of Kalamazoo County, the Kalamazoo County Bar Association, Western Michigan University Specialty Program in Alcohol and Drug Abuse (SPADA), and by the law firm, Miller Canfield.

Estimates are that over fifty percent of emergency room visits involve alcohol or other drug addictions. Factor in to that equation that one-in-four children grow up with an alcoholic or drug-addicted adult, and it becomes easy to understand that the problem is widespread. The statistics are staggering, health consequences multiply and the economic impact is devastating.

If left untreated, addiction costs our community hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in emergency room visits, foster care, jail, motor vehicle accidents, lost productivity … the list just goes on and on. For every dollar that the community invests in treatment, we save twelve dollars. Likewise, every dollar that we cut from treatment costs us twelve.

And this is not someone else’s problem. This is a problem that touches all of us. The people affected by substance abuse are not “those” people. They are “our” people. Substance abuse affects families, children, professionals, students, mature people, young people, rich people, poor people, our neighbors, our friends and our co-workers.  The need for more education and understanding about addictions is key to treating addiction with positive successful outcomes.

Opening the conference was William Cope Moyers, executive director of public policy at the Hazelden Foundation based in Minnesota and celebrated author of Broken: My Story of Addiction and Recovery. He describes himself as a “kite rising against the wind,” and has dedicated his life to helping others feel the same relief of a fresh start.

Following Moyers was Dr. Robert Ackerman, professor and program director of the Human Services Program Degree at the University of South Carolina at Hilton Head.  He is the previous director of the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Research and Training Institute in Pennsylvania, and a co-founder of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics.

As an author he has published numerous articles and research findings and is best known for writing the first book in the United States on children of alcoholics.  Twelve books later, many television appearances, and countless speaking engagements he has become internationally known for his work with families and children of all ages.  His books have been translated into thirteen languages.

Ackerman presented on how families are affected by addiction, and on appreciating how gender differences impact treatment and recovery.

Dr. Carlton Erickson followed Ackerman. Erickson is a research scientist, and a distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, and Director of the Addiction Science Research and Education Center in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin.

He has published over 260 peer-reviewed and professional articles, and is an Associate Editor of the scientific journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. He is the author of The Science of Addiction: From Neurobiology to Treatment (2007), which won a Hamilton Book Award in 2008, and Addiction Essentials: The Go-to Guide for Clinicians and Patients (2011).

Erickson spoke about how addiction is a brain disease, and on addiction science for clinicians and patients.

Afternoon breakout sessions included Recipes for Addiction Treatments that Really Work by Dr. Michael Liepman, medical director for the Community Healing Centers and professor of psychiatry at the Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies (MSU/KCMS), author of over 110 articles and former associate editor of the Journal of Substance Abuse; the  Healing Power of Therapeutic Jurisprudence by drug treatment court judges and attorneys; Legal Issues and Addiction, a questions and answers discussion led by area attorneys; and Personal Addiction Journeys by drug treatment court graduates moderated by Charlene Taylor, Prevention Specialist, Community Healing Centers.

For many families and individuals, addiction is like the elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about it, but you can’t help but knock against it every other step. Professionals know the elephant is there, but this conference helped them come to terms with how best we can work together as a community to remove it.

The evening before the conference, over 290 community members attended a free presentation by Moyers at the Air Zoo.  Moyers spoke about his personal recovery journey and the importance of reducing the stigma of addiction.

We all benefit when our community becomes stronger in partnership and knowledge. Bringing this disease—with its dismay, despair and desperation—out into the fresh air and sunlight enriches the possibility of recovery.

By Sally Reames, Executive Director, Community Healing Centers; William Schma, retired judge, president, Drug Treatment Court Foundation of Kalamazoo County; Robin King, attorney, president, Kalamazoo County Bar Association and C. Dennis Simpson, director, Specialty Program in Alcohol and Drug Abuse, WMU.

Golf Fore Kids 2011

Thornapple Creek Golf Club hosted the 3^rd Annual Golf Fore Kids outing on July 23^rd.  Pinwheels, each one representing a child who had been abused in Kalamazoo County in a month, spun in the wind, reminding all why they were there.  120 golfers and many generous sponsors helped raise over $18,000.    In addition to playing 18 beautiful holes, golfers were treated to a wonderful awards dinner, lots of prizes, and had the opportunity to bid on some great  packages in a silent auction.  Peter and Judy Croden, event co-chairs reported, “We are so grateful to the businesses in this community that donated the wonderful prizes and auction items.  When we go out and talk to them about why this cause is so important, people want to do whatever they can to help.  Sadly, the facts are that a child is abused, here where we live, every 12 minutes.  1 in 4 children will be sexually assaulted before the age of 18.  It is important to us to make sure that the programs and therapists have the resources they need to help these children heal.”    Mark July 23, 2012 on your calendar to join us at Golf Fore Kids at the Gull Lake Country Club!

In grateful acknowledgement of all the Golf Fore Kids sponsors, thank you!
 

MAJOR SPONSORS

GOLD SPONSORS

ED BIRCH & JANICE BROWN
CSM
MILLENNIUM RESTAURANT GROUP
MILLER CANFIELD
RAYMOND JAMES
SEBER TANS

SILVER SPONSORS

AMERICAN AIR DUCT CLEANERS
BATTLE CREEK COUNTRY CLUB
BOLD RESTAURANT & CATERING
BRONSON/BRONSON ATHLETIC CLUB
ART COLE & SALLY REAMES
GULL LAKE COUNTRY CLUB
KALAMAZOO COUNTRY CLUB
LOST DUNES GOLF CLUB
MEIJERS
POINTES NORTH BEACHFRONT RESORT
POINTE O’WOODS GOLF CLUB
PT1 – PHYSICAL THERAPY ONE
JEFFREY J. RIGGS DDS
SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN DERMATOLOGY
THE MOORS GOLF CLUB
THORNAPPLE CREEK GOLF CLUB
WEST HILLS ATHLETIC CLUB
WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY

BRONZE SPONSORS