Welcome House, Inc.

Welcome House offers holistic, residential peer and professional support to adult men recovering from substance use disorder. Success is defined by participants’ graduation from the organization's core program, the Sober Living Recovery Program. During each resident’s journey through this 6- to 12-month program, multiple measures track progress toward graduation and the myriad individual accomplishments this entails for each man. The ultimate goal and definition of long-term success is for every resident to achieve sustained sobriety, a healthy and productive lifestyle, and community reintegration. 

In the next 3 to 5 years, Welcome House will expand its capacity to serve men who are without the resources to access private, for-profit substance use disorder recovery services, helping to close the local gap that exists between the community's need and the availability of effective, affordable services.

The next few years will also see Welcome House continuing to employ evidence-based strategies to achieve improvements in its measurable outcomes, while maintaining its specialized focus on the unique needs of adult men with substance use disorder.

Finally, because undiagnosed and un-addressed co-occurring conditions frequently complicate substance use treatment and recovery, Welcome House will continue strengthening its holistic approach and expanding its network of collaborating organizations that support its residents into long-term recovery.

Expand capacity
The facility is a 100-year old, 80-bed structure that needs costly repairs. Welcome House already operates at capacity and frequently has a wait list for admission. It is running out of space to support current programs and service numbers, with no room to accommodate increased demand and growth. According to a University of Kansas study, "Toward a More Responsive Substance Use Disorder Continuum of Care: Kansas City Metropolitan Area 2018 Needs Assessment," the shortage of long-term recovery beds in the greater Kansas City area is acute and demand for services far exceeds current capacity. This is particularly true for uninsured and low-income people. When individuals are ready to move from medical detoxification or hospital inpatient settings into residential care settings, there is often nowhere for them to go and they are highly vulnerable to relapse. To help close this gap, accommodate demand, support its expanding recovery and rehabilitative program, and better serve clients, Welcome House is launching a $10 million campaign for a new 26,000+ square-foot Welcome House Recovery Center and therapeutic residential facility. The new facility will allow the census to grow and serve more men, an expansion from 80 beds to 100 beds. Preliminary 2020 graduation rates also indicate an increase in staff-to-client ratio will help improve this key indicator of success, so human, along with physical resources, will need to grow.

Evidence-based strategies
In 2017 Welcome House restructured the Core Recovery Program to better reflect evidence-based strategies, resulting in a significantly improved graduation rate after its first full year (36% versus the previous model’s 15%). Robust professional development will help staff stay abreast of the latest promising research, tools, and techniques within the substance use treatment care continuum, including a Medication-Assisted Therapy pilot in 2020. The new Community CareLink electronic case management system has facilitated data capture and analysis for further targeted improvements in both individual case management and overall program operations.

Holistic approach
With a comprehensive bio-psycho-social clinical assessment tool providing an important basis for developing individualized recovery plans, Welcome House already works to identify and address each resident’s needs, barriers, and risks. Staff continue to grow an extensive network of referral partners, expanding the resources available to meet a range of resident needs. The Rehabilitative Jobs Program assists men transitioning from homelessness, joblessness, or incarceration by helping them establish a solid work history, attain new skills, and set career or educational goals. Finally, Welcome House continues developing a network of peer mentors, program alumni and other volunteers who help residents make connections to the wider local recovery community, which offers the ongoing support so crucial to long-term recovery.

All of the professional Welcome House staff are living in long-term recovery. Six are Welcome House program graduates. Because they have experienced addiction and recovery first hand, Welcome House staff and leadership understand that behind every addiction is an individual story and a set of unique needs. This experience and a desire to help others has led each to pursue and achieve the appropriate education, licensure and/or certification for their role in the substance use and recovery care continuum. 

Welcome House’s professional staff also know that to build a strong foundation for their clients’ sustained recovery, they must address the complex physical, psychological, social, vocational and legal issues so often accompanying substance use disorder. A 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), "Crossing the Quality Chasm: Adaptation to Mental Health and Addictive Disorders," highlights both the challenges and the opportunities in providing care for people coping with addiction as well as co-occurring mental and physical health issues.

“The co-occurrence of mental, substance-use, and general health problems and illnesses has important implications for the recovery of individuals with these illnesses. All of these conditions need to be detected and treated; however, this often does not happen, and even when it does, providers dealing with one condition often fail to detect and treat the co-occurring illness and to collaborate in the coordinated care of these patients.” The IOM concludes that, “To overcome these obstacles, the committee recommends that individual treatment providers create clinically effective linkages among mental, substance-use, and general health care and other human service agencies caring for these patients.” 

Welcome House's program offers both clinical support and connections to other community services to coordinate care for men suffering from co-occurring conditions. The program director, who is a Licensed Master Social Worker, provides an additional layer of clinical oversight, coordinates services across systems, and promotes high-quality care. Welcome House's team of certified peer/recovery support specialists use data from initial clinical assessments to create individualized treatment plans that address not only substance use, but mental and physical health. To support long-term wellness and facilitate residents’ understanding of their own psychological and social wellbeing, the team uses the evidence-based PHQ-9 Patient Depression Questionnaire at regular intervals to guide treatment and monitor progress toward mental and behavioral health outcomes.

Welcome House continues to work with key partner organization, First Call, to provide ongoing recovery advocate services, educational classes, and workshops such as “Relapse Prevention,” “How To Cope,” and “Caring For Kids,” as well as continued support and development of the Community CareLink case management system. Welcome House also continues to maintain and strengthen its robust collaboration network, including client referrals from Artists Helping the Homeless; Heartland Regional Alcohol and Drug Addiction Assessment Center; Swope Health Services; ReDiscover; Truman Medical Centers; and others. 

To achieve capacity-building goals, Welcome House has successfully both grown and diversified its funding base of individual donors, event sponsors and participants, and local and national foundations. Among those that have awarded program and operating grants in recent years are the Curry Family Foundation, Ina Calkins Trust, Taylor S. & Patti Harding Abernathy Charitable Trust, the Health Forward Foundation, H&R Block Foundation, and the Hanley Family Foundation. In 2019 Welcome House sought and was awarded its first public funding through the Jackson County, Missouri COMBAT anti-crime sales tax fund. Two annual volunteer-led special events raise both awareness and unrestricted funds for the organization: the Welcome House Annual Breakfast, which attracts more than 1,000 attendees, and the Swing Fore Recovery Golf Classic, which has sold out every year to date.

Limited in capacity growth by the constraints of its current facility, Welcome House’s near-term goals will continue its focus on improving program quality and outcomes, adding services, and developing its professional staffing level, building upon the success it has realized since 2017, when it enhanced its Core Recovery Program to more fully align with best practices in substance use disorder treatment and recovery. These enhancements promoted coordinated, individualized care and led to a significant increase in capacity and graduation rates. Now serving approximately 500 individuals annually, an average of 15 men a month complete the 30-day assessment and probationary period. Once accepted into the Core Recovery Program, they receive individualized support with a focus on personal accountability and responsibility, access to comprehensive screenings and rehabilitative services, as well as life and recovery skills training. That program revision effort incorporated a review of data and staff experience showing that offering residents an unlimited time to complete the recovery program was not resulting in desired outcomes. The new program model puts more focus on responsibility and accountability, including “skin in the game,” via a required contribution to room and board. The Rehabilitative Jobs program and “Jumpstart” provide the means to make that contribution while getting new residents involved and contributing right away. Evidence shows that having a job and learning new skills rebuilds confidence, provides needed structure for those in recovery, and builds social connections – also vital to successful recovery. None of these requirements are without the holistic supports that help make those steps possible for men in recovery. Other 2017 program enhancements included: three-tiered clinical assessments, the addition of certified peer/recovery support specialists, coordinated case management, and more effective data tracking through First Call’s Community Care Link (CCL). CCL is a screening/assessment tool, referral and case management software, and customized outcomes tracking system.

Analysis of program data since 2017 has begun revealing the efficacy of these changes, including what services should be added, and which leverage points are most likely to lead to further improvements -- both for individual residents and overall program outcomes. The Thrive Aftercare and the Family Support programs have resulted from these efforts. Both fill in gaps that existed in Welcome House's vision of holistic recovery supports. These, along with a successful campaign to build a new facility and increased funding to support additional staff, promise a bright future for Welcome House and the men it serves.