A former Guild client on the importance of residential treatment services
The success of our clients is the driving force behind everything we do at Guild, and we believe helping people living with mental illness lead stable, fulfilling lives in their chosen community is the best road to recovery. So when we were planning and developing our new Crisis & Recovery Center in Dakota County, which provides Intensive Residential Treatment Services (IRTS), Crisis Residential Services (CRS), and a 24-hour mental health assessment and crisis service, we wanted to make sure the needs of the community were at the forefront of our design and programming considerations.
Sara, one of our former clients, was a huge supporter of our new Crisis & Recovery Center even before it broke ground. She found Guild more than a decade ago during an especially challenging time in her life and received resources and support through our Maureen’s House residential facility. She credited her time there with setting her up for emotional and mental success and giving her the tools and resources she needed to “get back out into the world.”
“Guild gave me skills that made me confident that I could try this on my own,” Sara said when she opened up about her journey to recovery. “But they also told me that if I ever need them again, their door is always open. I can come back any time.”
Several years after finding support at Maureen’s House, Sara graciously shared her story and experience again — this time with city council and at a community town hall to support the build of Guild’s Crisis & Recovery Center – Dakota County and help move the development process forward. With Sara’s help, and with the support of generous donors and partners, we broke ground the following year.
“I feel it’s so important we have alternative spaces for folks who don’t require such intensive inpatient or involuntary care but still need and deserve a safe place to heal and recover,” she shared during the project’s early approval stages. “I have experienced first-hand how having a place to go that isn’t the hospital psych unit can be much more therapeutic and healing in a time of crisis.”
We celebrated the opening of our Crisis & Recovery Center – Dakota County last month with a ribbon cutting ceremony and offered tours to Guild staff, project donors and partners, and current and former clients — including Sara.
“I was overwhelmed with emotion that day,” she told us. “I started sobbing, because it was such a beautiful place. I want the meditation room in my house!”
Sara remembers spending her teenage years in a residential treatment center and in a group home, environments that weren’t especially welcoming or conducive to recovery. She told us Guild’s new facility “felt like home.”
“Nothing compares to how beautiful this facility was,” she shared. “It didn’t feel like an institution. It didn’t feel like a hospital. The people that are going to be able to take advantage of this resource are so lucky.”
You have the ability to make sure people living with mental illness continue to have access to the services they need to recover and thrive. Reach out to your legislators and share with them how residential treatment services like the ones we provide at Guild change lives. We’ve created an advocacy toolkit filled with resources to make it easy to help spread the word.
“The healing that can go on when you’re in a place that feels safe and cozy and comforting is ten times different than when you’re going to be in a sterile hospital room that’s all white and no color,” Sara said. “I wasn’t just a number to them. I wasn’t just a patient. I was a person.”