Office Manager Marge Hansen greets clients at the new facility's admitting desk.

The Center has embarked on a first-time venture into the world of primary inpatient chemical dependency treatment.

The Center's new building, at 1402 East Superior Street, near the Plaza shopping district, became, on Oct. 8, the "home" for a brand new, 10-bed inpatient treatment program, as well as the Duluth Detoxification Center opened earlier.

Both "Detox" and the treatment program are housed on the building's Superior Street level and share resources. Thus clients of both programs have access to services currently formerly provided only by Detox. These include medical care, nursing staff and meals.

Gary P. Olson, the Center's Executive Director, said this arrangement creates a synergism between the two programs, making each more effective than it would be standing alone.

Previously, Olson noted, Detox clients often had to wait up to several weeks after discharge to be evaluated for admission to a treatment program. This frequently produced relapse and carried a substantial risk of harm to the clients or others. And, of course, there was usually a need to start all over again – with no better guarantee of immediate treatment admission than there was the first time. This has now changed, Olson said, with the co-location of Detox and inpatient treatment. Detox clients deemed appropriate for the new program may now simply "graduate" to another part of the building. And one big risk of relapse is eliminated.

"By combining a treatment program with Detox," Olson noted, "we expect to improve outcomes through eliminating distance and time obstacles that clients normally face when seeking treatment."

Meanwhile, the arrangement should also produce a better result for taxpayers of St. Louis, Pine, Lake, Cook, Carlton and Douglas (Wisconsin) Counties, whose levies help to support detoxification efforts. "Every careful study, including the State of Minnesota's," said Olson, "shows that a dollar spent on (chemical dependency) treatment saves $7 to $12 in public spending, through lower jail, court, welfare and medical costs." Reducing the number of clients who cycle through detox without adequate treatment, therefore, should pay off down the road.

The treatment program occupies the front one-fourth of the new building's Superior Street level. Clients are housed in five two-bed rooms with windows fronting on the street. If necessary, the treatment program also can "borrow" bed space for sicker clients from the Detox area of the building.

Hallways and rooms in the treatment center portion of the building are carpeted and are as "non-instutional" in appearance as it's possible to make them, says Architect Randy Blomquist of Duluth's Design Alternatives architectural firm. The treatment area also includes kitchen and lounge/TV room, in addition to a large room for group treatment activities.

Bill Plum, Counseling Supervisor, who heads the new inpatient treatment effort, notes the program is short-term and solution-based. It's aimed, he said, at "stabilizing clients as soon as possible, so they can move into a less intensive (and less costly) treatment program."

The typical client, said Plum, will stay about 5 to 7 days before being discharged with a referral to an outpatient treatment program within his or her home community. Programming is fairly intensive.

The treatment day runs from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with time out for meals and recreation. In the morning, clients are seen by medical personnel if necessary, then go to clinical group and finally to individual counseling sessions prior to lunch. Afternoons are taken up by a second clinical group meeting, then by treatment planning and discharge group. After dinner, clients attend outpatient treatment groups (many of these outpatient groups will be located on the Jefferson Street level of the Center's building after Phase 2 of construction work is completed next year). The goal is to involve clients in a continuum of care from the moment of Detox admission to the moment of completion of an outpatient treatment program.

Care, itself, focuses, Plum noted, on aiding clients to find solutions to life problems. It raises client consciousness, he said, and equips them with "a language much more accurate for real life." This "new language," said Plum, helps clients to "connect the dots" and to "begin the process of discovering what's important in their lives." It helps them, he added, to become active and investigative," seeking out solutions to present predicaments and to life's future difficulties.

In sum, Plum said, the program should help clients who have learned to "medicate" their problems with alcohol or some other drug find a better way to solve them. It will, he asserted, help clients to change. And, in consequence, to learn that "change doesn't necessarily have to be a horrible, awful experience; that instead, it can be a force for good."