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Daybreak treatment involves life enrichment program

Sarah Spier, Catherine Reynolds and Tom Russell

Experiences of three staff members intersect with how Daybreak Youth Services is able to offer personalized inpatient and outpatient recovery and treatment for teens struggling with substance use disorder and mental health challenges in Eastern and Southwest Washington.

In Spokane, the residential inpatient program provides a safe environment for girls ages 12 to 18 seeking treatment. Clients work on recovery while continuing school and engaging in recreational activities to further their growth and success. Spokane also offers an evaluation and treatment facility for short-term crisis stabilization, co-ed outpatient counseling and wraparound intensive services.

Daybreak offers services for males and females. The inpatient services for males are in Brush Prairie, Wash., and for females, in Spokane.

In both locations, Daybreak’s inpatient facilities offer programs associated with local schools to prepare the teens for high school diplomas or GED tests.

Daybreak recognizes that teens and their families often feel frightened, isolated and confused. Their certified professional team provides support to help them heal and thrive.

Life enrichment director Catherine Reynolds and director of external relations Sarah Spier understand the struggle from personal experience.

Catherine remembers wondering what she had done wrong when her daughter spiraled into addiction.

Sarah’s world turned upside down when a boyfriend introduced her to drugs, which almost led to her death.

Tom Russell, CEO of Daybreak in Vancouver and Spokane, started studying theology and eventually entered business, leading health care entities. His focus is on increasing community wellness, so he brings that emphasis along with his administrative skills.

They were interviewed recently at the inpatient center in Spokane.

Three years ago, Spokane’s inpatient program began offering its Life Enrichment program, taking groups into the community for life enriching experiences that incorporate mind, body and spirit in recovery.

Collaborating with local organizations, Daybreak has more than 40 community partners that help make opportunities possible for clients to develop a love for “sober activities,” by exploring new interests. Partners include Embrace, Peak 7, EWU, WSU, SCC, Spokane Humane Society and Project Beauty Share.

Those activities include art therapy, career planning, field trips, yoga, equine therapy, nature hikes, bowling, college tours, swimming, disc golf, kick boxing, crossfit, woodworking, dance therapy, camp outings and rope courses.

The activities often stir emotions and teach teens to manage those emotions and interpersonal interactions.

“We do fun, enriching, educational activities to have the teens go into the community so they feel inspired and motivated to find their life passions,” said Catherine.

“They learn they can have fun and stay sober,” she said.

“Visiting the Touchmark Retirement Community, girls saw people in different stages of care and learned options for their lives in the future if they plan and save,” said Catherine.

Some opportunities include job shadowing so the teens discover career options. Other activities are going out for ice cream or snowshoeing.

During the activities, Catherine provides the love and encouragement the girls may not have had.

When the Life Enrichment program started, the completion rate for the girls in Spokane’s inpatient program was about 85 percent. It is now about 95 percent.

Daybreak’s inpatient program in Spokane serves more than 200 a year. After clients graduate, they enter treatment at the Daybreak outpatient center, which includes Wraparound Intensive Services (WISe) counseling teens and families in their homes.

Daybreak serves nearly 450 a year in Spokane and 1,000 statewide.

Evaluation and Treatment is short-term treatment for young girls in Spokane who are experiencing mental health crises and thoughts of suicide, said Sarah.

Catherine, Sarah and Tom shared about Daybreak’s beginnings and their own commitment.

Daybreak was inspired 41 years ago in the summer of 1978 when Bill Yakely was on his tractor at his family farm near Spokane. He heard a clear voice say, “Help the children.”

Bill told his pastor, who said he wasn’t the only member to receive that message. Motivated by that call to help children, a small group began to meet. They did research and found a gap in treatment for children experiencing addiction. With a counselor, a director and two clients, Daybreak Youth Services began in a church basement.

The first board included different faiths. Bill traveled around the U.S. to look at different models. At first, they focused on alcohol abuse and then added substance abuse.

Today with inpatient and outpatient facilities in Spokane and Vancouver, Daybreak is an innovator in treating the continuum care of adolescents seeking help for substance use disorder and co-occurring mental health, Sarah said.

Twenty years ago, it opened the inpatient center at 628 S. Cowley. The Third St. building housed the administrative offices and its outpatient program, which is now located in Spokane Valley.

Catherine came to Daybreak as an intern while studying at Spokane Falls Community College to be a chemical dependency therapist.

Twenty years ago, she moved from Texas to Seattle and earned a bachelor’s in journalism at Baylor. In 1991, she earned a master’s in education at George Washington University in D.C.

Six years ago, she began studies at SFCC when her daughter was struggling with substance abuse at college in Colorado.

“I wanted to understand why she was making poor choices,” she said.

Her daughter overcame substance use disorder and is now thriving. She is now studying to be a veterinarian.

Tom, who became Daybreak’s CEO in March, said dealing with both mental health and substance abuse—instead of one or the other—helps youth recover faster and for the long-term.

After studying theology and business at Union, an Adventist college in Lincoln, Neb., he worked 35 years in hospitals, clinics and managed-care—15 years in Missouri before becoming senior vice president and then CEO for Adventist Health in Portland in 1994. In 2001, he earned a master’s in business at Southern Adventist University there.

Prior to retiring in 2015, he developed a wellness program for hospital employees and implemented it in 19 hospitals for 30,000 employees. He then began Russell Health Strategies, a consulting company to improve wellness and health outcomes.

Last year, a friend asked him to help Daybreak. Tom was interested because a son’s friend, who spent much time with his family, had committed suicide, so Daybreak’s mission drew him.

Sarah lived in Santa Fe, N.M., working in film with her mother and grandmother at the age of 17. She ventured to Los Angeles, where she worked on several film projects, as makeup and special effects artist, and in some production work. She worked closely with celebrities.

She traveled the world and at 19 started an international nonprofit in Tanzania to support an underfunded school.

Two years later, she returned to New Mexico, where her boyfriend, who had just been released from prison, introduced her to hard drugs.

“My life spiraled out of control for a year and a half. Seeing no way out, I felt helpless and hopeless. I had lost my amazing life,” Sarah said. “My mother had an intuition the day I tried to commit suicide. She found me and took me to the hospital. Then she took me to a treatment center in Arizona that healed my mind, body and spirit.”

In 2014, Sarah graduated from Eastern Washington University with a major in international political science with a focus on the socio-economic development of opiate drug treatment systems and a minor in cultural anthropology with a focus on drug cultures. She came to Daybreak two years ago to “help save lives,” she said.

“Faith draws me outside of myself when I serve,” said Sarah. “I was given a second chance and want to help others.”

Tom feels privileged “to make a long-term difference in teens’ lives, break chains that might lead them to homelessness or crime, and set them on a track to become contributing members of society.”

“To face the stigma of mental illness and substance use disorder, teens need compassion, love, encouragement and understanding,” said Sarah, who values her mother who was her “cheerleader” and believed she could overcome addiction.

For information, call 444-7033 ext. 2001 or email sspier@daybreakyouthservices.org.