The Garden City Telegram
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Treatment center moves to farm
Published 7/2/2009 in Local News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
MARIENTHAL — What was once a farm, and then a foster care home for children in western Kansas, has been transformed into a center for women dealing with substance abuse.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram — Tammy and Chris Lund sit outside the City On A Hill treatment center for women about 1 1/2 miles east of Marienthal. The center, which treats women for alcohol and substance abuse, had its first year at Camp Christy, near Scott City.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram — Chris and Tammy Lund have included various features in and outside the home for the women when they arrive. This is a meditation area with a fountain in the backyard. There also are places for the women to garden, exercise and meet as a group.
Mary and Jerome Berning, who were looking for a way someone could utilize their vacant farm 1 1/2 miles east of Marienthal when they moved, first decided to convert their farm into a foster care home to house children in need of a temporary place to live.
That led to the creation of the New Hope Children's Farm, but the Bernings and New Hope Board of Directors never could get the home permanently filled.
So now, the couple is going a different direction, turning their former farm house over to another couple who will convert it into an intermediate treatment center for women dealing with alcohol and substance abuse, known as City On A Hill.
A new path
City On A Hill started its first season in November 2008, running through May of this year.
Christopher and Tammy Lund, executive director and residential director, respectively, for City On A Hill, started the center with a 16-bed, 24-hour facility for women dealing with substance abuse at Camp Christy, near Scott City.
During the first year, the Lunds said that while they were licensed for 16 beds, the facility averaged treating about seven women at a time. So it made sense to downsize, Chris Lund said.
City On A Hill's Board of Directors considered a couple of options: either close the treatment center or find another location. The board opted for the new location of the Berning's former farm house.
Both the board and the Bernings felt the philosophy of City On A Hill — "save a mother, save a family" — fell in line with New Hope's goal of helping children.
Mary Berning said her board members wanted to help children, and foster care was the direction they were going. However, the board spoke with some of the women attending City On A Hill this past year, Berning said, explaining they started thinking foster care wasn't the only option to help children.
"By stopping it with the mother," Berning said of substance abuse, they are, in a way, helping the family, so the children can remain in the home.
It is a different direction, Berning said, "but we're excited about it."
Getting started
The capacity of the center will be eight women, and the Lunds plan to start accepting patients on Sept. 1.
The couple has been working at fixing up the home since May and are almost done renovating the bedrooms. The center also will include, among other features, an exercise room, entertainment area, space for meditation and crafts, gardening, a group meeting area the Lunds converted from a garage, and future plans include a challenge course.
The treatment center developed through the Lunds seeing a need in the area for a female inpatient facility for those struggling with substance abuse. While Chris was working with the Kansas Department of Corrections in finding placement for women for substance abuse treatment, the closest place he could seem to find to send the clients was Hoisington or other places at least several hours from southwest Kansas. And the wait, lack of transportation and other challenges in getting a woman placed in 24-hour treatment can be life threatening for someone struggling with substance abuse, he said.
The center came about through years of thought and work by the couple. The Hoisington center has since closed because of cuts to state budget funding, and the Lunds believe the Marienthal center is the only facility in western Kansas available for just women.
Tammy Lund said that at the start of last year's treatment center, she'd see women arrive who were withdrawn, ill and defensive.
"We'd see a miraculous change," she said of the women by the end of their time at the center, explaining they'd go from hopeless to hopeful.
The Lunds had 33 women go through the program, with 30 successfully completing it. A typical program stay is about a month. After a 90-day checkup, 75 percent of the women were still doing well, Tammy Lund said.
The move
The new location will allow the Lunds to run the center year round instead of having to end in May for Camp Christy to start its own camp services in the summer. Which is great, Tammy Lund said, because women were still calling for help by the end of the treatment program's first year. Another comment Lund said she's heard from some women is they wouldn't have sought treatment if they'd had to travel.
A 30-day stay at the center runs about $4,000. The couple has been able to keep the cost of the center down some through partnering with Greeley County Health Services to provide detox and medical services before the women arrive at the center.
The center operated on a budget of $386,000 for 2008, including more than $200,000 in salaries for nine staff — three night staff, an outpatient counselor, cook, billing clerk, two full-time counselors and Chris Lund. The budget comes from, among other sources, donations and area county funding. This next year, there will be five staff at the intermediate center and two in the outpatient office. Chris Lund said that with the economy and recession, the center is trying to downsize staff and reallocate services to remain viable and competitive, while still keeping God, family and self at the heart of everything they do.
City On A Hill is now operating its office and additional outpatient services, including Spanish-speaking and domestic violence services, out of the former New Chance office, 116 1/2 E. Chestnut, in Garden City. New Chance closed its Garden City office and is operating out of Dodge City.
For more information on the City On A Hill treatment center, contact the center in Marienthal at (620) 379-4478, or at the City On A Hill office at 276-0831.
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