Florida - GulfCoast

Dream Pinellas

Dream Pinellas empowers youth to lead healthy, fulfilling lives free from substance use by providing education, support, and opportunities for positive community engagement. Every child deserves to dream to live drug & alcohol-free, healthy, confident, and successful.

For ten years, Camp Mariposa has offered children impacted by family substance misuse six weekend camps annually, plus six additional community-building activities.

Each Camp Session:

• Educates youth about the dangers of substance misuse.
• Helps young people build self-esteem, decision-making skills, and healthy relationships.
• Provides a safe space to express themselves about the effects of substance use within their families.

Dream Pinellas will build upon this successful program. It will provide evidence-based education and prevention services to our community’s youth, using a flexible framework and in a wide-range of settings.

For more information, please contact:

• Kendra Abraham, Prevention Director: (727) 515-3838
• Debbie DuPey, Prevention Specialist: (727) 215-4789

Camp Mariposa

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Camp Mariposa^® St. Petersburg is a year-round addiction prevention and mentoring program for youth affected by the substance use disorder of a family member.

Youth ages 9-12 attend weekend camps up to six times a year. Weekend camps offer fun, traditional camp activities combined with education and support sessions led by mental health professionals and trained adult mentors. Transportation is provided for campers from our WestCare facility to the camp location.

Additional social activities are offered for youth and their families throughout the year. Many Camp Mariposa locations offer programs for teens ages 13-17. All program activities are offered free of charge to families. Camp Mariposa St. Petersburg is part of Eluna’s national Camp Mariposa network. For more information, please visit elunanetwork.org.

Upcoming Camp Dates for 2024

• July 12-14
• September 20-22
• November 8-10

Upcoming Camp Dates for 2025

• January 10-12
• March 28-30
• May 16-18
• July 18-20
• September 19-21
• November 14-16

Applications

Youth Application
Mentor Application

Contact Information

Kendra Abraham, Camp Mariposa Director
Phone: (727) 515-3838
Email: 

Red Tent Women's Initiative

In July of 2024, The Red Tent Women’s Initiative (RTWI) became a part of WestCare GulfCoast-Florida, Inc.’s family of programs. First established in 2012, the RTWI provides trauma-informed care to women in Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties who are incarcerated or are at risk of incarceration. Through their programs, participants are taught positive coping skills, mindfulness techniques, and life skills to empower them to face their past trauma and avoid incarceration or reenter society successfully. Outcomes of the program include but are not limited to enhanced personal communication skills, resiliency when encountering difficult situations, and successfully securing gainful employment.

The Mustard Seed Inn

The Mustard Seed Inn provides transitional housing to homeless adults who have begun their recovery from alcohol, drug abuse and/or mental illness. Mustard Seed is certified by the Florida Association of Recovery Residences (FARR) in cooperation with the Department of Children and Families.

The Mustard Seed Inn, a tri-level facility (a former hotel), is centrally located just minutes from downtown St. Petersburg in a large catchment area for veterans due to the presence of two of the largest VA health care systems in the nation (James A. Haley Veterans Hospital and Bay Pines VA Health Care System).

The Mustard Seed Inn, established in 1991, offers 70 beds for 24/7 transitional living, recovery support services, and case management. The facility serves both males and females, although rooms are separated by gender. Residents can remain in the facility for up to 24 months if needed.

FARR Ethics: farronline.org/ethics
FARR Grievance Form: farronline.info/grievance

Outpatient Substance Abuse Services

WestCare provides twelve (12) weeks of group counseling and drug screening for individuals referred by the Pinellas County Drug Court. Placement in Levels II or III services will be determined at assessment and as ordered by the court. Funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration focuses on serving women with substance abuse issues who also suffer form prescription medication misuse issues. Persons served are required by the Pinellas County Drug Court to attend the Level II or III Outpatient Program at WestCare Florida, located at the North Belcher Road office in Clearwater for the north county group or in the Outpatient Office in St. Petersburg for the south county group. All Drug Court clients are provided with special offender counseling that recognizes that the learning needs, psychological problems and social skills of the client must be addressed to prevent relapse into substance abusing and criminal behavior. The program design recognizes that any relapse into criminal behavior is likely to cause a relapse into chemical use, and that any relapse into the use of drugs, including alcohol is likely to cause a relapse into criminal behavior. The focus is equally on abstinence from criminal behavior as well as substance use. The treatment providers functions as part of a treatment team which is made up of the court including the judge, and other members of that system, case managers, probation officers and attorneys. The treatment provider meets with the drug court team to discuss individual participants and will participate in provider meetings to address drug court issues and to continuously improve drug court effectiveness.

Turning Point

Turning Point, an emergency intervention shelter and inebriate receiving facility, provides emergency intervention shelter services for homeless adults with substance abuse issues. The shelter is the only facility (in the local area) that accepts inebriated adults directly from the street. Overall, the shelter is designed to provide temporary emergency shelter and cold night shelter services for individuals who have not yet begun their journey into recovery from alcohol and drug abuse. In the Turning Point program, WestCare staff members attempt to engage individuals by offering supportive services. Clients may also be linked to community-based health and human services including temporary shelter, nourishment, shower facilities, case management, supportive counseling, skills building groups and 12-step meetings. Many clients transition into recovery support services and transitional living within WestCare at the Mustard Seed Inn located within minutes of the shelter. Special populations served by Turning Point include veterans and individuals with co-occurring issues.

WestCare Residential Treatment, Variable Length of 8-18 Months

WestCare - GulfCoast's residential program for men and women who are court ordered to participate in substance treatment. They can be referred by the courts or any legal system. Participants in this treatment program all have a serious substance abuse problem or a co-occurring disorder. The modified therapeutic community model program consists of two phases or components. The first phase of the program is the Intensive Treatment Component (ITC), and the final phase of the program is the Employment/Re-entry Component (ERC). These residential programs are a modified TC located at the WestCare Community Involvement Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Target population is adult males and females with a substance use and/or co-occurring mental health disorder, who are referred by the court system for residential treatment. The mission is to provide comprehensive and innovative services to Central Florida's criminal justice involved substance abusers. Treatment is 8-18 months:

• Orientation - Stabilization to the environment and orientation to the treatment program and the addiction and recovery process. Staff will teach the basic 10 functions of the Therapeutic Community philosophy through learning, practicing and being challenged on each skill.
• Engagement - produces constructive insights and changes in behavior. There is a strong emphasis on decision-making, acceptance of ones inability to use substances, pre-vocational and/or educational instruction and development of a plan for relapse prevention, including recognition of the need to continue in aftercare treatment or with self-help groups beyond the treatment experience.
• Reentry - Participants are required to secure and maintain full time employment during the day, and participate in treatment groups and activities either prior to or after work. Our treatment program blends a peer leadership model with professional supervision. Members reside on the premises, and participate in a full complement of treatment groups which focus on abstinence issues, criminal thinking, life skills, and prevocational readiness.