Welcome to The Little Blue House.

LBH, working together with the Salvation Army Harbor Light Center program, the Shaw Comprehensive Job Training Evening Academy, and the Adele Lebowitz Center for Youth and Families has developed the Commitment to Hope Intensive Reunification Program(CTH). CTH goes beyond the traditional approaches to helping needy families and brings new resources and expertise to bear on the problem of drug and alcohol addiction and it's impact on the parenting of young children. CTH offers mothers residential treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, job training, parenting classes and much-needed, hands-on parent coaching and coping skills, and evaluations and therapy for their young children.

According to LBH Executive Director Carl Foster, "It may be possible for a chronic substance abusing mom to be a good mom but I've never seen an example of it."

Based on our considerable experience, all children need to be nurtured and attended to. When children are neglected, they fall behind developmentally and that has a cost both to the child and to the society. Ordering moms to pass weekly drug tests may not get the job done for chronic abusers. In this program, job training isn't just about finding work. It's about empowerment. The Shaw program has a long history of turning mom's lives around.

"Expecting a child's situation to change without a fundamental change in mom's life fits one definition of insanity," continues Mr. Foster. "The one where you expect a different result from the same behavior." While moms participate in a residential drug treatment program, the children's emotional, medical and psychological needs are being evaluated and addressed in the safe and nurturing environment. Later in the program, moms start a unique parenting program that begins with teaching basic child care skills and doesn't assume that these moms already knows the basics like how to change a diaper or talk to her children or how to discipline her children without violence and to contribute to the child's self esteem. Our program includes classroom topics not available in other parenting programs and offers moms a chance to practice and get feedback on parenting skills and techniques. At the same time, moms receive intensive job and personal development training at the esteemed Shaw Comprehensive Job Training Evening Academy. For many, this will be a mother's only chance to step away from their day-to-day parenting responsibilities to work on her own issues in a program where the plan is to return her children when she is capable of properly caring for them.

With Commitment To Hope, mothers and children will benefit from new services not currently available under the auspices of one program. At each step along the way the program will produce non-ambiguous evaluations of mom's performance that judges, guardians and case workers can use to make tough decisions about these mothers and their children. Through no-nonsense, supportive, and professional services for moms, CTH offers each mom a chance to break the cycle of substance abuse and neglect and offers these kids and their families hope.

For more information about CTH please contact LBH at (202) 291-2100