HELPING UP MISSION -SPIRITUAL RECOVERY PROGRAM (MD)

Program Description

Helping Up Mission, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 1885 by Pastor Abraham Ezra Brandanbaugh to help the poor and underserved of Baltimore. Currently, the Mission offers a variety of programs designed to meet the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs of people who are disenfranchised. For the first 109 years of its existence, the focus of Helping Up Mission was primarily emergency overnight services for homeless men (meals, clothing, showers, lodging, and spiritual hope). In the early 1990s, the Mission expanded its services, instituting a residential program for men striving to overcome poverty and drug related addictions. Helping Up Mission also has a Spiritual Recovery Program (SRP) that serves former offenders as part of the catchment group.

The one-year Spiritual Recovery Program, which began in the early 1990s, provides support services such as spiritual life classes, 12-step classes, adult basic education, computer literacy training, legal and medical services, career counseling, job placement assistance, mental health counseling, and health education. Over 300 men are admitted on an annual basis. Many men hear about the program while staying in overnight status, others hear through word of mouth, some are given Mission information in the prisons, and others are remanded to the Mission by the criminal justice system. According to the program, 85 percent of the individuals served by the Mission are battling drug addiction; many lost everything and wound up homeless; most were formerly incarcerated.

Helping Up Mission has a growing graduate transitional housing program for men who feel they need time for further recovery within the Mission community. These men pay a small lodging fee ($50 per week) and have access to all the Mission services. Graduates living at the Mission are required to attend a minimal number of required classes each week. Helping Up Mission is planning to increase transitional living services as well as the number of men who can be served by the Spiritual Recovery Program.

Program Goals
The goal of the one-year Spiritual Recovery Program is to "provide a structure that will change patterns of destructive behavior into patterns of wholesome living in the context of family, church, community, and career."

Networking, Partnering & Collaboration

Helping Up Mission works closely with a variety of organizations to meet the needs of its constituents. These partnerships include social services, health care providers, lawyers, educators, corporations, IT professionals, architectural firms, and carpenters. Social services provide food stamp and temporary emergency housing and medical assistance money to the men in the program with Helping Up Mission as the payee. This relationship helps cover a small percentage of the Mission's overall budget for food, supplies, and housing. The Mission's health care partners meet the various medical needs of the men for little or no fee. Its legal partners provide pro-bono assistance to the men, helping them clear up anything that might be a barrier to employment after they leave the program. Educators volunteer their time in the Mission's Innovative Learning Center, tutoring men in math and literacy and preparing those who do not have their high school diploma to take the state GED exam. The Mission works closely with many corporations in the Baltimore area to arrange employment for the men once they enter the "life preparation" stage of the program (8 months). IT professionals assist the Mission with acquiring and maintaining hardware and software. Architectural firms provide guidance for renovations and expansion to the facilities; carpenters assist with repairs.

Outcomes

The ultimate goal of Helping Up Mission is that the men who complete the one-year Spiritual Recovery Program go from having a "net negative impact" to a "net positive impact" on society. By the time they leave the Mission, graduates should have all the tools necessary for a full and lasting recovery (a strong and growing faith, a well-established support system for encouragement and accountability, a church home, a good job with opportunity for advancement, the education needed to develop a solid career, freedom from bondage to the penile system, physical and mental well-being, and a healthy bank account to ensure they can obtain housing in a safe and wholesome neighborhood).

Mission staff began gathering basic statistical data in 1999. Post-graduate studies consistently indicate that 80 percent of those who graduate from the Spiritual Recovery Program are still drug-free and employed one year after they complete the program. The overall effectiveness of the Mission 's Spiritual Recovery Program will be formally evaluated over the next one to three years by a group of researchers from The Johns Hopkins University.

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