2022 COMBAT Funding: $105,288.00

In Amethyst Place's Own Words

Clients

Clients must be a mother, currently homeless, and have at least 30 days of recovery to qualify for this program. They must also be referred by one of eight partner agencies that serve on our Program Council:

• Children’s Mercy TIES
• ReDiscover
• Comprehensive Mental Health Services
• Heartland Center for Behavioral Change
• Jackson County Family Drug Court/Children's Division
• Operation Breakthrough
• Sheffield's Place
• Journey to New Life

Referring agencies help their qualified clients complete and submit an application and they are placed on the Amethyst program waitlist.

150 Women & Children Served Annually

Amethyst Place has been bringing families home to heal in Jackson County for 20 years. Our mission is to support women recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and their children by providing safe, drug-free housing and individualized services to promote healthy families.

We have grown from our original transitional housing program, which included seven units, to a truly comprehensive, long-term supportive housing program with 37 units that now serves around 150 women and children annually. Through our Supportive Housing, Family Empowerment, and Therapeutic Support Services programs, we reunify families, help them overcome generational poverty, and ultimately thrive.

Treating Mothers To Reunite & Save Families

It is often said that addiction is a family disease, yet the recovery process is rarely managed as such by the service system. Maternal substance use impacts the entire family. 

Addiction is often passed through generations, along with untreated mental health disorders, trauma, poverty, housing instability, family separation and foster care placement, poor educational attainment, and justice-system involvement. Impacts are heavily felt by the children: In 2019, Jackson County had 374 children associated with substantiated cases of child abuse/neglect.

Additionally in 2019, although county-level data is not available, the Missouri Children's Division received a total of 5,941 Newborn Crisis Assessment Referrals across the state. Many of these relate to perinatal substance use identified at birth and can also result in foster care placements.

To help mothers recover from substance use while preventing these cycles among their children, a holistic, long-term and evidence-based array of wraparound supports is needed to truly heal and empower families. Amethyst Place is the only agency in Jackson County that provides long-term family housing and recovery supports to women and children. 

Our waitlist exemplifies the high demand in Jackson County. Forty-four families are currently waiting to make Amethyst Place their home, and it is taking a year or longer to get in. Among these families, 56 of the 70 children are currently separated from their mom in out-of-home placement, yet we know their chances of reunifying are strong once their mom enters Amethyst Place.

Without reunification at Amethyst Place or elsewhere, the consequences of prolonged foster care placement are dramatic. 

Adults who spent time in foster care as children have much poorer outcomes in education, mental health, employment, housing stability, public assistance receipt, and criminal justice system involvement. Many Amethyst Place moms themselves spent time in foster care. Our program offers a chance to break this vicious cycle and change each family’s life trajectory. This also results in cost savings to the foster care system. According to the National Council for Adoption, foster care costs an average of $25,000 per child per year. With 60% of our 2019 children having spent time in foster care, Amethyst Place produced a potential savings of $1.1 million in public dollars.