LifeSkills, which supports people with mental illness, addiction and intellectual disabilities, and Haven4Change, a transitional living house for chemically dependent women and their children, are merging their services, LifeSkills announced Friday at its 50th anniversary dinner at the Sloan Convention Center.

“We will be able to take advantage of all their programs. To join these partners is a win-win for both of us because we can all work together,” said Haven4Change President Elaine Price. “I think it’s going to be a good partnership.”  

While Haven4Change will fall under the LifeSkills umbrella, there will be no changes, said LifeSkills President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Dan Beavers.

“They will continue to provide services. They will retain their name,” he said. “There’s additional services that can enhance what they can do. We hope we can grow it and expand it and help them continue the great work they have been doing for 20 years.”

Much of the change involves having LifeSkills staff members on-site, Beavers said.

“This is an opportunity for us to have clinical staff on-site to serve women who are there as well as the children or the family as a unit,” he said. “There will be wraparound services offered to them as they transition back into society. We know there is a significant need.

“We have services that are less intensive and more intensive. We have made referrals to Haven4Change,” Beavers said. “It’s always been a partnership that works well.”

Haven4Change is unique, Beavers said.

“It was started by folks who had ties and history to LifeSkills. They recognized a need of the community that was not being met,” he said. “It was originally opened as a place to provide transitional living services, especially for women with children if they need to seek transitional treatment and have no place for their children to go.

“It’s one of the few places where children can go. It’s a sanctuary for women who are trying to rebuild their lives and rebuild their families,” he said. “Their motto is to keep a mother and her children together while treatment is sought. It aligns well with LifeSkills.”

“Statistics have shown that women with children with them stick with it,” Price said. “The success rate may be a little bit better.”

Beavers said he wishes that there was no need for this type of service.

“It’s a really challenging time. It’s critical,” he said. “Greater success is obtainable if you keep the family together. It’s hard not to get behind a mission like this.”

LifeSkills’ Park Place Recovery Center’s stay is 21 to 28 days, so clients are often referred to Haven4Change, which can hold up to 18 women and their children, for their next stage of recovery, Beavers said.

“Most of the women who go through the program stay for six months. We don’t just kick them out,” Price said. “They can stay longer if they need to. Some of them are quicker than that. They call it home because that’s where they get their stability at. It’s really a neat process.”

The women receive help finding jobs and putting children in day care, Price said. They pay rent while at Haven4Change. The organization also helps the women find living quarters for when they leave.

“That teaches them to set aside money,” Price said. “They learn how much those expenses are. It’s a learning process.”

Southcentral Kentuckians aren’t the only people who use the nonprofit. Women from other parts of the state come as well, Price said.

“Most of these women who come to Haven4Change end up staying in Bowling Green and become productive citizens after going through the program,” she said.

When Haven4Change received the Women’s Fund last year, it helped bring community awareness, Price said.

“We were able to fix the inside,” she said. “We’re real proud of the building the way it looks right now.”

Beavers believes Haven4Change deserves the attention.

“We hope at a minimum that it will get the attention to services and let people know it’s there and available to southcentral Kentucky for years to come,” he said.

Also announced at the dinner was the Community Partnership Award, which was presented to HOTEL INC.

“It was very surprising and humbling,” said Executive Director Rhondell Miller.

HOTEL INC works with LifeSkills in a variety of ways, including for those who are experiencing homelessness or who are in need of mental health services, permanent supportive housing or for the mobile crisis unit for when people are contemplating suicide, Miller said.

“The work we do with LifeSkills is multifaceted and challenging,” she said.

— Follow features reporter Alyssa Harvey on Twitter @bgdnfeatures or visit bgdailynews.com.