SEATTLE — After being discharged from Northpoint Washington for drug and alcohol addiction treatment, a road to recovery awaits patients. Outpatient services for Northpoint prepares these patients for reintegration into their community and a life outside of treatment.
"Prior to a patient leaving inpatient, we really have to paint a picture for what recovery looks like out in the community," said Logan Stroud, Vice President of Northpoint Washington.
Painting a picture of recovery requires spending time talking with patients, their counselors, their nursing team, and creating a detailed plan of what the patient is going to expect out in the community. Structure maintenance and community reintegration is essential after leaving Northpoint Washington's facility.
While outpatient services is not required, it is highly recommended by the Northpoint team and their outreach team can help patients get into their own program if they are from the local area or for programs closer to their home.
"We always say that there isn't a typical [outreach] program because we really want to base it on the individual needs and get the client the right level of care," said Sharon Fenton, Director of Outpatient Services for Northpoint Washington. "Then, [we] continue to assess that and continue to make sure we have them in the right care as they progress through services."
General outpatient programs include various times and lengths ranging from six hours a day, five days a week, to nine to 20 hours for two to three months.
Northpoint Washington is also integrating new approaches they have found to be effective.
"We take the best of what we've always been doing, really working hard to integrate them into the recovery community," said Fenton. "Doing relapse prevention, planning a lot of good education, the standard cognitive behavior therapy. . . We have a yoga instructor come in, we have a meditation specialist come in. We have a family therapist that comes in and works with both evening and day programs because there's a lot of realities to everybody's life that are complicated."
Another important part of outpatient services is Northpoint Washington's alumni program to connect patients together.
"When the patients leave our inpatient stay, they get an app on their phone with a confidential username and password so they can go in and connect with other alumni and go to meetings out in the community whether they choose to attend outpatient [services] or not, which some people choose not to," said Stroud. "We recommend anything that's going to keep them on the road to recovery, whatever appeals to them and works for them."
This segment is sponsored by Northpoint Washington. Watch New Day Northwest 11:00 weekdays on KING-TV Ch.5 or streaming live on KING5.com. Connect with New Day via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.