News

News, Events, & Announcements

09/07/2010: Responsibility House Update

Responsibility House is focusing itself on the quality and effectiveness of our work in these hard times. We have begun providing treatment in our men's Residential Treatment Program according to a new model for us: a modified Therapeutic Community Model. This model of treatment gives clients firsthand knowledge of their ability to change each others -- and their own -- lives. We make this change after careful deliberation, seeking to implement a model of treatment that will have the most positive effect for the greatest number of people.

The Supportive Housing Program continues to operate smoothly, serving over 65 individual chronically homeless persons at any given time. We will soon begin offering walk-in case management services for homeless people at the St. Jude Community Center, fulfilling the needs of our community's most underserved populations.

Meanwhile, our Outpatient Treatment Programs are expanding, providing more comprehensive services to clients with a broad range of severity of addiction. A long-time manager at Responsibility House with superb expertise in the field, Shirley Gray, has taken over the management of our Outpatient Programs, ensuring that they continue to be successful.

06/19/2010: Social Detoxification Program to CLOSE on JUNE 30, 2010.

It is with heavy hearts that we announce the closure of our Social Detoxification Program on June 30, 2010. For almost 10 years, this program has set individuals on the road to recovery by stabilizing their vital signs, assisting them to begin the Twelve Steps, and connecting them directly to primary substance abuse treatment programs.

As a cost-effective alternative to medical detoxification and emergency room visits, our Social Detoxification Program has diverted hundreds and hundreds of individuals from these more expensive facilities. Losing Responsibility House's Social Detoxification Program will represent a great loss to the New Orleans community, as there are no other similar facilities in all of the eight-Parish Greater New Orleans Area.

If we had any choice in the matter, we would gladly move mountains to keep the program open. In fact, we've given it our best to secure the needed funding over the past two years. However, without sufficient grant funding for this vital public service, we cannot continue to operate the program at a loss to the organization, imperiling our other essential programs.

Although it pains us greatly, our Social Detoxification Program bids farewell to the community and the many many individuals that the program has guided toward sobriety and long-term recovery. Thank you.

9/21/09: Registration Open for Fall Workshop

On November 12, 2009 Responsibility will host Dr. Lisa Najavits for a full day clinical training workshop. Four years after Hurricane Katrina, the population of the Greater New Orleans Area suffers from PTSD and other trauma-related mental illness at rates well above national averages. Our workshop this year responds to the community need by providing clinicians and students with concrete tools for providing integrated treatment of substance use and trauma related disorders. For more information visit our workshop page or to register go here.

9/17/09: Recovery Day: Bigger and Better Than Ever!

This year we celebrated the best Recovery Day yet! Our third annual community gathering to celebrate recovery was held at The Four Columns. This year we enjoyed record attendance, with over 150 participants. Thank you to all those who made it possible!

5/4/09: Another Successful Workshop

On April 30, 2009, Responsibility House hosted its third successful professional development workshop on Integrated Treatment. Dr. Mee-Lee presented a follow-up training on the practical application of the Integrated Treatment model, called "Why Integrating Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment is Hard and What to do About it." Celebration Church was generous enough to donate the space for the workshop again, providing a great learning environment.

The workshop focused on the real, practical barriers to the implementation of the Integrated Treatment model and how to overcome them to provide effective services to people with multiple diagnoses.

This workshop was a part of our ongoing Integrated Treatment Training and Education Program, which we are able to provide because of a generous grant from Baptist Community Ministries.

More information on this workshop is available here.

12/17/08: Training and Education Initiative to be Expanded

Responsibility House has received word that Baptist Community Ministries will support its Integrated Treatment Training and Education Program with a generous three-year grant. This support will allow us to provide comprehensive training and education on integrated models of treating co-occurring disorders.

Responsibility House began this education initiative over the summer with a workshop on integrated treatment presented by Dr. Kenneth Minkoff, and we followed up that training with another workshop focusing on the clinical aspects of the model. At this second workshop, Dr. David Mee-Lee presented a session on the practical application of the Integrated Treatment model. We have now booked Dr. Mee-Lee to return to New Orleans to present a follow-up workshop on April 30, 2009.

With Baptist Community Ministries’ support, Responsibility House will expand its training and education initiative to include in-house supervised clinical training and academic courses on integrated treatment to be taught at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. Responsibility House will be seeking more university partners as our program matures.

Through this program, we will disseminate this emergent, most effective model of treating dually diagnosed persons to the widest and most pertinent population of Louisianans.

11/11/08: New Supportive Housing Program

Responsibility House is pleased to announce the opening of a new Supportive Housing Program in Orleans Parish. The Rebirth Project will be our first program located on the East Bank, and we are excited to get it off the ground and serving the citizens of the Greater New Orleans area. It will provide similar services to a similar population as our current supportive housing programs, but its location on the East Bank will allow Responsibility House to broaden the reach of its services and support.

We want to thank UNITY of Greater New Orleans for awarding us the generous grant through which we are able to offer this new program.

As the program comes online, we will post more updates here.