PEGRAM, Tenn. (WKRN) – Jay Crosson has a big vision.
He’s CEO of Cumberland Heights, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Nashville.
Next summer, the nonprofit plans to turn a 67-acre plot of land into a recovery center for teen boys called ARCH Academy.
“They’re progressing into substances that can kill them really quick,” Crosson said. “We really need that intervention to break that cycle of addiction.”
ARCH Academy will offer a six-month recovery program for boys ages 14 to 18 battling addiction.
“We want these kids to graduate high school,” he said. “We want them to go to college.”
Up to 30 teens will live on campus which will be designed will three residence halls, a school, dining hall, and counseling room where they’ll work with therapists like Dean Porterfield.
“Anxiety, depression, trauma, we treat the whole child,” said Porterfield, director of adolescent services for Cumberland Heights.
Porterfield says about 57 percent of the teens they treat are addicted to marijuana. 10 percent are addicted to cocaine, five percent to heroin or opiates, and about 29 percent to a mix of drugs.
“It’s not uncommon for that teenager’s first experience to be at 10, 12, 13 years old,” Porterfield said.
The goal of the new center is to go more in-depth with teens, offering six months of help instead of the current program which is one to two months long.
“If we can get a longer length of stay, we can get a more solid recovery,” Crosson said.
The nonprofit will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the teen center on Thursday, April 26.
They hope to have it up and running by summer 2019.
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