Drug Treatment in Salem

Drug treatment programs don’t usually have a very high success rate. Addicts can relapse, and sometimes they have to return multiple times before they can stay clean and sober.

But as Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, after its first year, a new program in Salem is boasting a high rate of success by using children to help keep addicts on the straight and narrow.

It used to be that if addicted parents ran afoul of the law, they’d lose their kids until they attended a treatment program.

The trouble was that many addicts had neither the will power nor the thousands of dollars needed to go to treatment. So they remained hooked, and their children remained in foster care.

But two years ago, the state legislature came up with $10 million to pay for the treatment of addicts with kids.

Each county got a slice of the money. In Salem, authorities set up ITRS or Intensive Treatment and RecoveryServices.

It’s a shop front inside a small beige industrial complex. Donald Ward, who has four kids, has been coming here since May.

Donald Ward: “I’ve been through Salvation Army Treatment in Fort Worth Texas. I’ve been to rehab in San Antonio. Then I was in rehab in Seattle, Washington, a couple of times in St. Luke’s hospital in Arizona.”

He’s been a meth addict since he was 13. He’s now 31. He ended up in treatment this time after the cops received a report he was wandering his neighborhood acting erratically.

Donald Ward: “They came to the door. My child had opened the door to the police and they asked my 6-year-old Mica, where his Dad was and he came upstairs to tell me the police were there to take him away.”

They did “take him away,” but only after asking Donald and his wife Kiawa Ward, if they could check the house to see if it was safe for children.

Donald Ward: “I thought I had everything hid pretty good but when they went upstairs in our bedroom, they found a bag of marijuana, a 9mm Ruger and my wallet. So I couldn’t say it wasn’t mine. That was the first thing that went through my head, but I was caught red handed. And then they opened up my windowsill and found a baggie of Meth. We went to jail. We got out of jail and even though we got out of jail, we used that day we got out of jail.”

But when their case went to court, the Wards were ordered to treatment at the new ITRS center.

Now, six months later, they just got their kids back. Kiawa Ward says to keep them they have to remain clean and sober; they have to continue attending mental health sessions; parenting classes; probation meetings; and other ITRS classes.

Kiawa Ward: “At first I thought it was a bad thing. Because I thought it was unfair. But they were doing it to help us. It gives you a little bit of motivation. You have to do it for yourself, first and foremost. You can’t just do it for them, but you also do it for your children.”

She says kids know what’s going on, no matter what a parent thinks. So by focusing treatment around the whole family, instead of just the addict, she believes ITRS has the right idea.

Kiawa Ward: “Our six year old. Like the other day we were smoking a cigarette in the garage and that’s where Daddy and me got high before. And he came in and opened the door and he said, 'what are you guys doing?' And we said, what do you want? And he said, 'I was just making sure that you’re not doing drugs again' and walked out. Well, he’s only six, and to come from a six year old to know everything that’s going on, it’s a big encouragement too because we know that he’s not a dummy and that he does know what’s going on and that we’re clean and doing good now.”

Using kids to keep parents on the straight and narrow is a controversial idea. But program officials say they don’t do it in a punitive way.

Their aim is to treat an addict successfully so the family can be together. In fact, Brown says treatment involves not just the kids, but spouses, brothers and sisters.

Barry Brown, a drug and alcohol counselor at ITRS, says even grandparents get involved.

Barry Brown: “The older parents don’t understand addiction. And they think they can just stop. And they can’t just stop. So it’s giving them an understanding of what treatment’s about, why they need to make changes and start building more trust. It’s a wrap-around service here.”

Brown estimates the state saves $2,000 per month for every kid that's to kept  out of foster care.

Mica, the Ward’s six-year-old son, is the 100th child to be taken out of foster care and returned to a parent through the new ITRS program.

That makes him one of 97 other kids whose parents have been with the program who are now at home.

Three children have not been able to return.

ITRS staff say they know all the parents are still clean and sober because everyweek they have to return for Alumni.

And if anyone is using, classmates and counselors are going to be able to tell.

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