Community Hope and Recovery Center Opens Stand Alone Office Downtown

By Jeremy Coumbes on January 30, 2020 at 9:51am

A resource for addiction treatment in Jacksonville is branching out to now offer treatment and counseling services in a stand alone facility.

The Community Hope and Recovery Center now has their own offices on the downtown square, after starting out in the Morgan County Probation Offices.

The Community Hope and Recovery Center of Jacksonville is a branch of what was formerly known as The Cass County Mental Health Association in Beardstown. The group stepped in to assist the probation department in Morgan County following the closing of the Wells Center.

Kayla Trenter, Director of the Substance Use Disorder Program, and Domestic Violence Program, for Community Hope and Recovery, says that even though the center seems like a new presence in Morgan County, they have actually been assisting area residents for some time now.

We have been operating out of the Morgan County Probation Department since the Wells Centers closure. The Probation Department Director reached out to my executive director and asked if we would be able to come in and provide some of the substance abuse services that they were now lacking for their clients at least until they got an idea of what was going to happen for the county.

So we started out in the probation department with just a part time position, and then it became full time, and then it has grown into what it has become today. We have three full time substance abuse counselors on staff, we have multiple mental health staff that work out of this office, the Domestic Violence Program works out of here as well, and so, it has really grown, but we’ve been around for a bit.”

Trenter says that there continues to be a great need for the services provided at the Community Hope and Recovery Center, even with other counseling and treatment centers in the area.

We provide crisis intervention for mental health or substance abuse. We provide early intervention, level 1, level 2, the higher the level, the more intensive the treatment is. We do not provide inpatient treatment but we do case management and essentially hold clients hands until they are able to get that bed for inpatient treatment, which can take quite a while, even with Gateway being in our community, the wait is still pretty long than what we would like to see.

We have been trying to be more, of just another resource essentially. I understand that we have centers for mental health and things like that in the area, but unfortunately, there are enough clients that need help, so none of us are lacking in terms of case loads, or anything like that. So it is just another resource that people have that they can go to and more options on where they can go to receive help.”

Trenter says that moving out of the probation office has given the center the ability to expand their program to help fill the needs in the Jacksonville area including the ability to help fill gaps in services, especially for those who would otherwise be forced to travel for specific counseling and treatment services.

It has been very very nice to have our own space, and really be able to see, just what the gaps are in services within the community and what we can do to help. That’s really where the level 2 services for substance abuses comes into play. With the Wells Center shut down, and the opioid epidemic in Illinois, and then domestic violence hasn’t been in this area for years and years, so clients were being refereed to Quincy or Springfield, and it is very difficult when you don’t have the means to then make an hour drive out of town.

So that was another response to a gap in services in the area, so we have been doing assessments for court and D.C.F.S. and really anyone that feels that they can benefit from it. So we are doing group not only in Beardstown, but in Jacksonville. We are trying to accommodate our clients as much as possible and take away that barrier of transportation.”

Trenter says that one aspect of their approach to treatment that she is particularly proud of is being able to meet with a client away from their offices. She says that sometimes people who need counseling or treatment can have a difficult time with traditional and clinical visit.

The first couple of sessions, the client may not be comfortable coming into our office, or this type of setting. So we go out in the community and meet with them. We can meet them at their home, we can meet at a neutral location. We definitely acknowledge we are working with mental health, we are working with substance use disorders, and we just don’t have that expectation of, taking away all of your coping skills, but we will do what we can to alleviate any stress for our clients, and see we just see a little bit more success when we operate like that. We are very much out in the community as opposed to this expectation that if you don’t come to us, then you are not going to receive the service.”

The agency offers outpatient mental health and substance abuse counseling; prevention; 24-hour emergency phone service; Screening, Assessment, and Support Services (SASS) for children and adolescents; community care for the elderly; community housing; case management; and community support for persons with serious and persistent mental illnesses, developmental training for individuals with developmental disabilities; and community education services.

The Community Hope and Recovery Center of Jacksonville is now located on the north east corner of the square at 60 East Central Park Plaza and accepts all insurance types as well as fee for service plans and grant assisted substance treatment. For more information or to set up and appointment to speak with a profesional, call the center at 217-800-6622