Alpha Mural - Day 10

Almost done...

BCI Welcomes New Board Members

The Brandywine Counseling Board of Directors announces the election of two new members on January 15, 2008.

Krista Dowling of Wilmington works for Nemours Health and Prevention Services as Special Assistant to the Senior Vice President/Intermediate Program and Policy Analyst. She received her Ph.D. in Drug Dependence Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University in 2007, and her Bachelor’s in Foundations of Behavior from George Washington University in 2001. Krista looks forward to applying her extensive experience in substance abuse and infectious disease to support such a wonderful and important organization.

Sanjay Kotha of Middletown is a Product Development Engineer with Rohm and Haas. He received a Master’s degree in Polymer Science from Clemson University in 2001, and a Bachelor’s degree in Petrochemical Engineering from Pune University in 1999. Sanjay is excited to be a part of our board and looks forward to using his background in engineering and business development to help make a difference in our society.

The BCI Board supports our treatment services through fundraising activities and promotion of our mission to the community. We know that both of these new members will add much to the organization. Please join us in giving them a warm welcome to BCI!

Alpha Mural - Day 8

Now comes some more detail, and our phoenix is beginning to come to life...

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Alpha Mural - Day 7

Caelen came by yesterday with a box of paints and did this...

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5 Questions for Jenn Kutney, Counselor

5 Questions is our ongoing feature where we introduce you to the people who make Brandywine Counseling run, spotlighting a different staff member every two weeks.

Name: Jenn Kutney
Job: Counselor, Bridge Perinatal Program
Time with BCI: 2 years

1. Tell us about your job and the clients you work with.
I’m a counselor for pregnant women, [and] women with young kids, that have a lot of case management issues, a lot of people with dual diagnosis. I wanted to work with families, and women in particular, women with children. That’s really why I came here.

A lot of our clients are coming in with problems with Health and Social Services. They’re coming in pregnant. [They] don’t really understand methadone and how it reacts with pregnancy, that whole interplay. A lot of women need housing help.

These are people that are coming from very chaotic backgrounds. They bring a lot of that chaos here to get it out, and it makes it chaotic here sometimes, and if you take it personally, it’s gonna burn you out.

2. What is your biggest challenge in doing your job?
There aren’t a lot of services for women with young children. There’s not a lot of housing programs available for women with young children. There’s not a lot of treatment programs available for women with young children.

You can get a single woman into treatment a lot easier than you can get a woman with children into treatment. You have to deal with finding a place for the children to go while she’s in treatment. I’m so grateful for The Lighthouse Program, because it’s desperately needed! It’s a great concept for a treatment program and I think it could do wonderful things if it continues.

And also, one of the biggest challenges is providing addiction services to women with open Division of Family Services cases, because sometimes they don’t quite understand what addiction is, the disease of addiction, and things like relapse.

3. What has been the most rewarding moment for you at BCI?
I started as a case manager, and I had a client on my caseload from day one when I walked in the door. DFS had taken her kids, and terminated her rights to one of her children, and taken the baby right from the hospital. She was discharged almost a year ago now. And I actually hear from her now, and she’s doing wonderfully. She’s clean, she’s moving out of state to get away from everything, and she’s doing very, very well.

4. Many of our staff decorate their office with personal items – tell us what you have in your office.
I like to hold things for clients, apparently! Right now I have strollers, and clothes, and all sorts of stuff. I wasn’t originally in this office, so a lot of the things I have are inherited. I inherited a picture from Kathy Kelley. I have kids draw me pictures, I have pictures of the babies, and of my nieces and nephews, hand drawn pictures.

5. What is something people would be surprised to know about your job?
How dedicated a lot of these women are to their families. The biggest stereotype I’ve heard since I started working here is that these women really don’t care about their kids. And they really, truly do care about their kids, and how their kids are doing, and making their life better, so that their kids don’t have to go through a lot of the things that they went through.

Client Contest: Name Our Mural!

BCI Alpha is having a mural painted in our waiting area, and we're asking our clients to help choose a title for it.

Wilmington artist Caelen Bird is volunteering his time to create this mural. Check out his website here. Paint was generously donated for this project by several local vendors, including Mammele’s, Dulux Paints, MAB Paints, and Lowes.

The concept we decided on was the phoenix rising from the ashes. Below you can see a preliminary sketch and a “Before” photo of the waiting area.

























The Phoenix bird is often used as a symbol of recovery. This mythical bird is synonymous with rebirth, healing, and peace. According to legend, a beautiful, one of a kind bird lives for 500 years. At the end of its life it builds itself a funeral pyre on top of the highest mountain. Then at sunrise, the morning sun causes it to burst into flames and be consumed. As the ashes cool, a stirring in the coals is seen, and a newborn phoenix rises reborn from the ashes of the old one.

As a symbol of being reborn from the ashes of our addiction, several analogies can be seen in this story: Fire represents treatment and early recovery. Pain represents introspection, the process of taking a look at the kind of person we have become due to our addiction. The newborn phoenix represents the recovering addict building a new life out of the ashes of their former addict lifestyle.

BCI Alpha clients can submit their ideas for a title through February 1. The winning entry will be incorporated into the mural. The winner will also receive a prize.

We are excited to finally add some color to our white cinder block walls! Keep watching this space to see the work in progress!

Potholes in the Road to Treatment (Literally)

Happy New Year, BCI Blog readers! As we move into our second year, we’ll continue to bring you an inside look at how we provide treatment to people who need it, and show you how you can be a part of the work we do.

A couple of weeks ago, the News Journal drew attention to something that’s been a longtime problem for our Newark Center:

Fix It: Brookhill Drive at South Chapel Street

“PROBLEM: Brookhill Drive near Newark. Potholes about 50 feet from South Chapel Street are so bad that drivers are traveling onto the private parking area of a building to avoid the rough road. Potholes cover the entire width of the road and stretch for at least 40 feet. Morning traffic between 7-9 a.m. is treacherous.

“WHO'S RESPONSIBLE: The News Journal thought this road would fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation, but representatives from the Canal District maintenance staff said it is a private road leading into an industrial park. That means it is not the responsibility of the state to maintain it, they said. The map shows the land is in the South Chapel Industrial Park.”

What the story doesn’t mention is that this road is the only way to access the BCI Newark Center at 24 Brookhill Drive. The people affected include over 200 BCI patients who must travel this route every day to get their medication. I personally travel this road about once a month, and I can tell you, it’s some of the worst driving conditions I’ve ever experienced. I can’t imagine having to do it every day. I’ve heard from other staff here who have had damage to their vehicles.

BCI has tried for years to get the responsible party to repair this road, to no avail. Our patients do not deserve to deal with these hazardous conditions day in and day out. So, perhaps by mentioning the issue here, we will get the attention of someone who can do something about it.

Annual Door Decorating Contest

One of our holiday traditions at BCI is our staff decorating their office doors. At the Lancaster Center, this always gets the staff and clients into the spirit of the season. I was asked to be a judge this year to pick the winner of the contest. Most of the entries came from the Bridge-Perinatal unit. There was lots of creativity this year, but in the end we went with the most original and the most fun.

The winner: Valerie Brown

Besides incorporating lights, Val’s Santas sing “Jingle Bells” in a motorized, yet cheerful voice to the patient waiting room. Scary? Perhaps. But it brought a smile to our faces, and isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

Honorable Mention: Dawn Mason and Robin Stewart
Dawn and Robin also get points for including lights in their display. We could tell they put a lot of time into the attractive flowers as well.

The rest:

Teresa Evans
Only a month on the job, and she shows she can decorate like a veteran!

Kathy Kelley
She wins the cultural competency award for incorporating several major religions.

Darniese Banks
Darniese conveys the theme of love, peace, and joy with a two-sided display.

Jenn Kutney
Check out the great ribbon. Duct tape – is there anything it can’t do?

Thanks to all who participated this year. From the BCI family to yours, have a wonderful holiday!

5 Questions for Steve Burns, Housing Coordinator

5 Questions is our ongoing feature where we introduce you to the people who make Brandywine Counseling run, spotlighting a different staff member every two weeks.

Name: Steve Burns
Job: Housing Coordinator, Project Return Transition House
Time with BCI: 13 years

1. Tell us about your job at BCI and the clients you work with.
I’m the House Coordinator for the transitional residential program, where we have six individual Brandywine clients for housing. We help them get jobs, we help them save money, we help them get different skills, we help them go to school. Whatever they want to do, we try to help them better themselves, so when they leave, they’ll be in better shape than they were before they came.

We try to get clients that are already clean and already have some kind of positive outlook or some kind of direction. But sometimes, when a person’s in a homeless situation, none of that’s possible. So first, we try to stabilize the client with their methadone dose. Whatever street drugs they’re using, we get them to stop doing that. Then, in the first 30 days, we try to find out which direction they want to go in. Do they want to go to school, do they want to get a job? But this is not a shelter, it’s not emergency housing, this is a transition house, and we’re trying to help you do something more positive in your life.

2. What advice do you have for someone who would like to do the job you do?
You have to have patience, and you have to have knowledge of what it’s like to be homeless. You don’t have to be homeless, but at least have some knowledge, some background, some schooling, some conversation. Just being able to understand and identify with a homeless person. Because a lot of times, people are homeless for a reason, they’re not just homeless because they don’t have a job and money. 75% of people who are homeless have either alcohol or drug addiction problems. 80% of them have mental health issues. A lot of them come from broken homes, no parent in the home, abuse of some kind. It’s just a lot of things that factor into a person being homeless. So on any given day, you may find out something about one of your residents that you never knew, but now you see why they act the way they act.

3. Tell us about your favorite client success story.
We had a female client at the transition house who was there when I came. We didn’t get along. Being in recovery and doing this as long as I’ve been doing it, I can kind of see different behaviors. And so I always addressed her on her behaviors, because I thought that that would be one of her downfalls, as far as her staying clean or relapsing, and she could never understand.
But in the end, she graduated from the program. She has a job, she has an apartment, she has a bank account, and she’s still doing good. And we’re great now, because through it all, now when she sees me, she says, “Thank you for staying on me. You know, I couldn’t see it then, but I had never saved money, never had my own place, I’ve never had my own job. Now I have all those things. I have recovery, I have a sponsor.”

4. Your involvement with the recovering community goes beyond your job at Brandywine. You’re also the President of the 1212 Club. What does it mean to you to be involved in that work?
Being the President of the 1212 Corporation is very rewarding, because it’s a place where people can come. It’s a safe haven. You can just come, relax, look at TV, play cards, have meetings, get yourself something to eat. I have some other people that are in recovery that are on the board with me. We work together because we want the 1212 to be a place where it’s safe to come. We want people from Brandywine to come. We’re doing something right now [with Advancing Recovery and clients from the Alpha Program], where we’re going to do some recovery coaching stuff, to see how it works.

The majority of our people don’t have skills, they don’t have education, so they need housing, they need education, they need jobs. We have a job training program. It’s not just 12 Step meetings -- that’s the most important part -- but a lot of times people say, “What’s the purpose of me staying clean if I don’t have a job, if I don’t have affordable decent housing. If I have to go back to the projects where I came from, I’m doomed.” So at the 1212, we try to help people to get to that next level in their recovery.

5. If you had $30,000 to donate to BCI, what would you do with it?
I probably would put it into transitional housing and the great work that we do with HIV and AIDS. I think those are two important parts right now.

The transition house used to just be open to Hope clients, Assertive Treatment Team clients. Now, since it’s open to anybody who qualifies, it has broadened the scale, and I would like to see us get more houses, get more space. Because I’m filled now, but every day there’s another counselor asking me, “Steve, do you have a bed? Steve do you have a bed?” People leave me messages, “Steve, do you have a bed?” So I think would be another great feat for Brandywine if we could expand that program.

The Lighthouse Program Opens Its Doors

Delaware's first Women and Children's Residential Addiction Treatment Program, dubbed The Lighthouse Program, opened December 10 in time for the holidays. Two guests are prepared to move in by the end of the week, and referrals are now being accepted.

Women interested in receiving treatment can get an assessment at any of the Substance Use Treatment centers in Delaware. An assessment appointment can be set up over the telephone.

For more information on the program and how to apply, click here.