Help Gateway Homes of Greater Richmond, Inc.

Gateway Homes of Greater Richmond, Inc.

Richmond, Virginia

Cause Description:
Gateway Homes of Greater Richmond is a nonprofit organization that provides a transitional living program designed to help individuals – who suffer from Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder or Depression – to live as independently as possible.

For nearly twenty years Gateway Homes of Greater Richmond has served Central Virginia by helping its citizens who suffer from chronic mental illness to maximize their quality of life in a safe and nurturing environment. Today Gateway’s mission is to provide a transitional living program for individuals who suffer from Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder or Depression, whose primary goal is to live as independently as possible. Gateway’s program is clinically focused and comprehensive, designed to serve the psychological, physical, social, vocational and educational needs of its residents.

Currently, there are approximately 300,000 Virginians diagnosed with a chronic mental illness – that’s 5% of the population in Virginia. Gateway is the only nonprofit organization in Central Virginia to provide affordable residential treatment services to individuals suffering from Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder or Depression. Without Gateway, individuals would be left with the limited choices of either high priced private hospitals or the often times substandard ‘warehouses’ of state institutions.

In 1989, Gateway built its first building, the Dr. William T. Moore Farmhouse, which opened on 30 acres of land in rural Chesterfield County. This first level of care, called the Assisted Living Program (ALP), is a licensed adult living facility that offers 24-hour staff supervision to 15 residents, daily. The focus at this level is to ensure that residents coming into the program are medication compliant and are building the daily living skills and coping skills to help them manage their illness and achieve greater independence.

Demonstrating this capacity, residents then graduate to Gateway’s Supported Living Program (SLP), three apartment buildings on campus, each housing eight residents. Staff at this level is available eight hours per day, five days per week and work with residents to help them prepare for returning to the community and to independent living.

Resident education and training at both levels are made possible through Gateway’s Activities Center, a 4,200 sq. ft. building on campus which offers an environment designed to help residents build familiarity, comfort, knowledge and skills to successfully transition them to increased levels of independence. It offers kitchen, laundry, exercise and computer facilities, along with a room for social functions and educational classes.

Gateway’s third level of the program is its Community Living Program (CLP), where residents transition back out into the community and are supported by Gateway’s staff on a weekly basis.

As part of Gateway’s new transitional living program new educational and therapeutic groups have been established for residents: group therapy, psychosocial skills, vocational skills, medication education, health and hygiene, nutrition education, personal finance, manners, stress management, office administration, assertiveness training, cooking, self-esteem and building healthy relationships. Through these new groups, each resident will be individually challenged to take an active role in his or her own treatment and will be empowered with the awareness, knowledge and skills needed to achieve their goals of greater self-sufficiency.

Type: Environmental
Listed on iGive since: April 2000
iGive members supporting: 12

Website: http://www.gatewayhomes.org

Raised through iGive: $159.43 across 5 checks, April 2000 to March 2002.

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