BUTTE — For almost a year, the Butte Rescue Mission has been offering services through a new Drop-in Center to members of the unhoused population as well as members of the community. The goal is to reach people with behavioral health issues as well as addiction issues.
Inside the low barrier shelter, a group of a dozen people play games at round tables. They look like typical board games but they are being played with the intention to help change behavioral.
A "Recovery Jenga" tower collapses, and the room erupts in cheers and laughter. The game is helps those playing learn about instant gratification.
"Today I get to help other people. I get to be a present mother, and I never knew that I could love waking up every day and coming to work," says Eternity Edwards, a certified peer support specialist for the new drop-in center at the Butte Rescue Mission.
She says she is able to use her own experience with addiction to help others.
"It’s all about lived experience. So, I don’t have years and years of like schooling, but I have years and years of experience that I never knew I could put to use with something good," says Edwards.
Federal funding through a mental health block grant and a substance use prevention and treatment block grant as well as state funding through the Montana Department of Health and Human Services help the Mission utilize trained peer-support staff like Eternity to offer trauma-informed activities like “Recovery Jenga” to give people tools to change their behaviors.
"We’re really trying to do something in their minds when they’re doing art, even," says Misty Johnston, the director of operations and programming at the Mission.
WATCH: Inside the new Drop-In Center
She says programming has been revamped several times to ensure that it is serving the best needs of the community.
"Our community needs it so bad, "
"There are so many people that are struggling in their homes or their apartments or their parents’ homes with addiction."
She says providing support can help prevent relapse for those struggling with addiction because without it...
"You end up going back to that traphouse or that dealer but here at the Butte Rescue Mission we have our behavioral health drop-in center so that you have an option besides that."
The drop-in center is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Aside from group activities, the center offers showers, three meals a day, resource applications for gas vouchers and food boxes, and laundry services.
