[Archived] City Addiction Treatment Center Commended by Local CSB for National Award

City Addiction Treatment Center Commended by Local CSB for National Award

The Alexandria Addiction Treatment Center received a national award from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a component of the Executive Office of the President, in recognition of their role and success in serving individuals with drug addiction through the Alexandria High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Program.

Members of the Alexandria Community Services Board (CSB), which oversees the use of public funds to provide mental health, intellectual disability and substance abuse services through the Department of Community and Human Services, met with staff at the Department’s Addiction Treatment Center to personally congratulate them for their commendable role in the program.

Through a partnership between the CSB and Alexandria Probation and Parole, the HIDTA program assists clients on probation whose addictions contributed to their criminal behaviors.  Through a system of coordinated probation supervision and addiction treatment, clients are able to get into recovery, avoid re-arrest and incarceration, and thereby reduce demand for illicit substances.

Probation officers and Alexandria’s HIDTA coordinator work together to identify clients eligible for treatment at the Center, which provides a full continuum for addiction treatment including medically assisted detox, a 30-day residential treatment program, evidence-based therapy and outpatient services.

Medication assisted methods for individuals addicted to heroin is the most effective available treatment, particularly when coupled with evidence based therapy—which is rarely offered by public agencies, according to Washington/Baltimore HIDTA Associate Deputy Director Ruth Phillips, who nominated the program for the award.  Nowhere else in the W/B HIDTA region is there a more comprehensive substance abuse treatment center than in Alexandria.  

HIDTA is a federal program that provides assistance to law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug trafficking regions of the United States.

For more information, contact Susan Tatum, Assistant Director, Clinical and Emergency Services, at 703.746.3648 or susan.tatum@alexandriava.gov