MARTINSBURG — Addiction and recovery services are moving into the next phase of professionalism with a bright future ahead, according to local officials, after the Berkeley County Day Report Center received praises from national and state leadership for its work.
During a visit to the facility Friday morning, James W. Carroll, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Director of the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA Tom Carr toured the facility and congratulated the DRC for the work it is doing, discussing what the recent award of $124,900 to the program means for the future of recovery services in the area.
“When we started the DRC back in 2016, we were just a very small staff, and I had no idea what to expect,” Tim Czaja, director of Community Corrections, said. “As we have grown and as our referrals have increased, our need for funding has increased. The Washington Baltimore HIDTA has been extremely generous to us, and we wouldn’t have been able to grow without their support. Our program apparently has captured the attention of national audiences even.”
The roundtable discussion consisted of Czaja, Carroll and Carr, as well as a number of Berkeley County Council members, representation from the offices of Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Congressman Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., and Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Catie Wilkes-Delligatti.
Czaja said the conversation covered a number of aspects of recovery in the Eastern Panhandle, including: the lowering of the Eastern Regional Jail bill as a result of the DRC’s success; the growth the program has seen in the four years it has been running; and the personal stories of a few program participants who shared how recovery and addiction services directly impacted their paths in life.
“It was a meaningful conversation, it was personal. The director expressed that he was impressed with what we did here,” Czaja said. “I’m really glad with the way the meeting went, and he went out of his way to express appreciation for what we do, and I certainly expressed my appreciation to him. This is going to help a lot of people. It’s a huge win for us, and it fills a major gap.”
According to Czaja, the visit from Carroll and Carr, as well as the funding received, will move the DRC into the next level of professionalism as it works to provide addiction and recovery services to locals.
The visit comes after Czaja shared with the Berkeley County Council that the DRC had received full funding to bring a masters level clinician to the Eastern Panhandle to serve those seeking treatment but do not have health insurance.
Czaja explained that on March 17, the Berkeley County Day Report Center submitted a discretionary funding request to the Washington Baltimore HIDTA for $124,900 to hire masters level clinicians to provide group and individual therapy to program participants who are ineligible for Medicaid and cannot afford private insurance.
Czaja said his estimate was based on paying the clinician $60 an hour for 40 hours a week, based on working 52 weeks out of the year.
Czaja said this funding would allow the DRC to bring on a clinician to provide treatment to those who do not have insurance, adding that this would greatly increase the quality of care the DRC can provide to participants and create leftover money to use for furthering other programs.