Samaritan Daytop Village’s Young Mother’s Program Serving Women in Recovery

Published on May 12, 2025
Get Connected Podcast

As broadcast on iHeartRadio 106.7 Lite FM “Get Connected,” May 12, 2025
Link to podcast episode.

Samaritan Daytop Village’s Young Mothers Program Serving Women in RecoveryOur guest is Sarah March, Program Director of Samaritan Daytop Village’s Young Mothers Program, where women who are in recovery have the opportunity to keep their children with them—a program model proven to improve recovery outcomes. For over 60 years, Samaritan Daytop Village has been improving the quality of life for New Yorkers, serving over 33,000 people annually at more than 60 facilities. For more, visit www.samaritanvillage.org.
Episode Transcript:

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about 106.7 Light FM.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome and thank you for listening to Get Connected. Happy
Mother’s Day everybody, and thank you for listening. For our
first conversation this morning, our guest is Sarah March. She
is Program Director of Samaritan Daytop Village’s Young Mothers Program,
where mothers who are in recovery have the opportunity to
keep their children with them, a program model shown to

(00:32):
have far better results for families. Sarah March, welcome to
the show. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Sarah March is a licensed mental health counselor and Credentialed
Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor, practicing mental health counseling in
residential substance use disorder treatment for over ten years. You
can find out more about the program at SamaritanVillage.org. Let’s start with us a little bit more
about Samaritan Daytop Village. Sarah, the organization does so many things.

(01:00):
What do they do and what is your role?

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Yes, so we’re a really far-reaching, widespread behavioral health
organization that supports people who are suffering from addiction, housing
and security, limited social supports, really, any New Yorker who
might find themselves being vulnerable in need of support and assistance.
I’m fairly confident that our agency has some way to

(01:22):
support them. My personal job is I’m the Program Director
at the Young Mothers Program. We’re a thirty-six-bed
residential substance use disorder treatment program in the Upper West
Side of Manhattan that serves women across New York State.
What really makes my program unique is that we’re able
to provide family intervention specific to recovery from substance use

(01:44):
disorder and mental health challenges on-site in a residential
setting where women can live with their young children, whenever
the opportunity presents itself.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I think most of us think of this traditional model
of residential programs. You’re isolated from your family and friends.
The idea being that a change in environment can help
you change your behaviors. You’re able to get your sort
of mind organized and get a little bit on track.
When is that warranted and for mothers, when does it
perhaps become debilitating.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
So what we’ve learned, especially at the Young Mothers Program
is that when we’re isolated from support.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
While we’re seeking treatment.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
And recovery, while we’re healing, those external forces.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
And our family members and our.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
Support networks aren’t aware of the active changes that we’re
making and maybe aren’t being also provided the opportunity to
recover themselves from the impact of the substance use disorder on
the entire family system. So the blended model and treatment
approach that we take is to welcome in and embrace
support networks, children, family members in any way that we can.

(02:48):
So that mom is able to recover visibly with her family,
while connected to her family, and then really have the
opportunity to stay connected to the people that are encouraging
and motivating her continued stay and try as it exists.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I think that’s a really interesting thing to bring up.
We don’t think about the impact the sort of ripple
effect sometimes that these challenges have. On average, there are
over 8.7 million kids in the US living
with at least one parent with a substance use disorder.
And since you brought that up, can you talk about
how that impacts kids?

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (03:19):
Absolutely, so with chronic substance use disorder, we really
see a destabilization kind of across the continuum of a
child’s life. There might be challenges with, you know, insecure
attachment with a parent figure. There might be disrupted connections
throughout the family system as a result of the substance use,

(03:41):
unstable housing, you know, food, insecurity. There have a lot
of challenges that can come up that when mom is
facing them as somebody who’s, you know, struggling with active
addiction, children, anybody in her care and.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
In her sphere is impacted as well.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
So what we really try to do is provide an
environment that is nurturing and healing and allows for this
holistic recovery to take root because basic needs are being met,
you know, by the agency and the ability of what
we’re able to extend as the program provider, and.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
What is sort of the model of how women would
live with their children or have contact with their children.
You do it in a couple of different ways, correct.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yeah. So it’s really person-centered and individualized based on
the specific mother’s need. You know, I could give a
lot of different anecdotes about the different ways that we’ve
seen that present at the Young Mothers program, but you know,
for the purposes of making a short kind of conversation
that we can get to the point. We see women
coming in who have been separated from their children for

(04:43):
a variety of reasons. Some of them identify that their
substance use is a barrier, so they proactively reach out
to family or support people to step in and care
for their children while they try to get their, you know,
their life back in order. Other women who have been
forcibly removed from their children as a result of
child welfare agency involvement in their family system, as a

(05:05):
result of maybe historical stressors or issues, or because of
mom’s current substance use disorder and addiction. So what we’re able
to do really is for women who are custodial parents
from pregnancy throughout the age of about three, we’re able
to allow them to live on site with their children.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
In our program, the.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
Children attend on-site childcare services and a daycare setting
that allows them to connect with childcare providers in a
way that’s developmentally appropriate while mom is responding to the
treatment environment and doing what she needs to do for
her recovery. Then mom is responsible for parenting overnight, through
the weekend, and throughout the course of the day with

(05:45):
staff support on site. For other women, we’re able to
offer on-site child visits, meaning children come in and
spend time with us, either at some point during the
course of the week for an.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Overnight visit or a weekend visit.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
We have family visits that happen on the weekend where grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers,
you name it, bring children on-site into the program
so that they’re able to see mom in a safe
space and connect with her in a way that’s supportive
of recovery.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
And then for women who have otherwise.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
Established some stability in their lives, they’re able to connect
with their children in community spaces. So maybe they do
an off-site child visit at a grandparent’s home, or
they’re able to meet with their children at a local
library or a mall or something like.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
That in the community.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Depending on what the child welfare involvement might be, that
could be a supervised or unsupervised visit. But really, you know,
the short end of it is that we collaborate with
whoever is actively present in the child’s life to ensure
that they’re able to reconnect with their mom in a safe,
supportive way that’s going to allow for that attachment to
repair and to become a healthy one.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
I think that’s useful to think about to the safety
of the kids. How is the safety of the kids
sort of built into the program.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
So, you know, we have set on site 24/7, which is really

meant to just ensure that
at any time, you know, circumstance big or little, we’re
able to connect with a woman who is in need of,
you know, clinical support. The children are cared for on
site in childcare settings, and we have twenty-four-hour
a day childcare staff on site so that maybe a(07:19):
new mom who’s going through, you know, the postpartum period
that hasn’t been able to get much sleep, we have
childcare staff on site who can take the baby so
mom can get her sleep. So really, what we try
to do is to make sure that the services that
we provide are consistent and emotionally responsive, developmentally appropriate, and
that the child is able to thrive in our environment(07:41):
while mom is seeking the support of her sisters in
recovery in our clinical setting.Speaker 2 (07:48):
Our guest is Sarah Marsh. She’s the Program Director of
the Samaritan Daytop Village Young Mothers Program, a residential treatment
facility treating addiction through a family system’s trauma-informed, gender-
responsive lens. You’re listening to Get Connected on 106.7 Lite FM. I’m Nina del Rio. If
you could talk just for a moment too about gender-(08:08):
specific I’m curious about just gender-specific care.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, so we have learned.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
You know that the experiences of people with substance use disorder,
with mental health disorders, trauma, you name it, varies depending
on where they align within the gender continuum.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
So people women.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
Might experience trauma in a different way than a man
might experience different types of trauma, different impacts of trauma.
We also know that the unique issues that women face
in recovery and in substance use disorder are things that
need to be worked through in a setting that’s responsive
to women’s needs. So I, as a woman, might connect
very differently in a group setting or a clinical setting

(08:48):
with other women than I would if men were present
in the group. Vulnerabilities come up in a different way,
and understanding of what a safe space to disclose past
experiences might be is very different. So we understand addiction,
recovery from addiction, anger, parenting, kind of all of the
unique stressors.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
That our clients face in the community.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
We do our very best to respond to them in
a way that is supportive of who they identify as
women and as mothers, and in the space.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
That allows them to explore that safely.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
So programs such as yours, where women are able to
have access to their children during treatment, found that the
data finds that 92% of participants complete treatment
compared to the average of 65% for residential
treatment programs. Overall, that’s a huge difference in number. But
how accessible are these programs? How available are these programs?

Speaker 4 (09:42):
So unfortunately, you know, we are few and far between.
Especially you know, when we consider nationally, it’s a model
that really is not.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Replicated across our country.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
In New York State, there are some providers who do
similar work to what we do. A couple throughout New
York City and so into upstate New York. But when
you think about geographically how large the state is, and
how addiction does not discriminate based on, you know, where
you are in the nation. The fact that at times
our services can be hours away from where a person

(10:16):
is initially or originally from, it really just speaks to
how, you know, the treatment model is unique and certainly
not replicated to the extent that it should be, given
our outcomes.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
And what are some of the alternatives, if the unfortunate alternatives,
I think we have to talk about that for a moment.
If women don’t have access to a program like this.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
So if a mom can’t come in with her child
into receiving the recovery support services that we need, then
there’s one of two things. Either mom is going to
be separated from child for the duration of her treatment stay,
or she won’t receive the care that she needs, which
is the unfortunate reality.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
You know, just a little bit something.

Speaker 4 (10:57):
I had a baby just recently in July, and I
could not bear to stand the idea of needing to
go and get help from a place and not being
able to have him with me. And if I were
to consider how that impacts somebody’s ability to stay engaged
in treatment, to continue to show up on the tough days,

(11:17):
the hard days, the days that you really wonder – is
this worth it? There’s just a core belief of mine
is that if the women in my
program have access to their children and are able to
feel connected to their families, to their support networks, the
likelihood of them staying in treatment is much much greater.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
One of the reasons we’re having this conversation now – it’s
Mother’s Day, but we want to advocate for more funding
for these programs. Your program during budget season, how is
the funding used? What allies do you have to help
you do that?

Speaker 4 (11:49):
You know, any increase in funding, we really use to
try to tailor our treatment interventions, our physical spaces, the
opportunities that we’re able to extend to our clients.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
We really look to stay.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
On the cutting edge of what the science behind addiction
is finding, so we’re able to provide, you know, more sensitive,
evidence-based treatment interventions. Because we can better access training services,
we’re able to create trauma-responsive spaces that allow women
to feel safe in our environment and to connect with

(12:23):
each other in a way that makes sense. What that
means at YMP is that our childcare spaces
are welcoming and are friendly, and we’re able to offer,
you know, STEM resources and toys for our children to
play with that stimulate their minds and their development. It
means that our drum rooms and our living spaces feel
comfortable for mom to relax and to spend time with.

(12:44):
You know, when I think of where funding has gone
in the past. We’re also reintroducing our clients to places
that they might have otherwise felt the stigma of addiction
in and.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Not felt welcomed in.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
We spend a lot of time going to community places,
community gardens, Central Park. We spend time in museums throughout
New York City. We do a wonderful collaboration with community partners,
trying to reintroduce all that New York City has to
offer to our mothers, to our children in a way
that they would not have been able to experience when
they were suffering from addiction.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
TARREPA, Can you share a story of a program success
that has been particularly memorable to you?

Speaker 3 (13:24):
I can.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
The woman who comes to mind is somebody who had
been unsuccessful in multiple treatment attempts before landing at our doors.
She was a non-custodial parent who had had her child
removed from her by the state, so when she got
to us, she was feeling really disconnected and almost a
feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. She was able to work

(13:46):
with our clinical staff on site and to connect with
some legal advocacy support services, and to regain access to
our children through visitation rights. With increased visitation, she was
able to do overnight visits on site at the Young
Mothers Program, and as the Child Welfare Agency saw that
she was able to parent on-site with the support

(14:09):
of the Young Mothers Program in a way that was
safe and responsive for her child, they awarded her the
return to parental rights of her child. I’m still in
touch with her to this day. She graduated from our program.
She’s back, connected with her family. She’s still an active,
involved parent, and you know, she really speaks to the

(14:29):
opportunity to having a space where she was able to
recover first and then regain access to her child when
it made sense in a physical space that was supportive
and encouraging of her and reduced any fear or stigma
around what it would be like to be reintroduced to
her child as a woman in recovery and with the
freedom to be able to parent in a supportive environment.

(14:52):
You know that was free of stigma and judgment made
all of the difference for her. So, a person who
came through our doors with little to no access to
our child, working in collaboration with the child welfare agency
to regain access to our child, being awarded the opportunity
to parent independently and then ultimately regain custody of her child.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
And maintain it.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
You can find out more about the organization. You can
find out ways to support at SamaritanVillage.org.
Our guest has been Sarah March, Program Director of Samaritan
Daytop Village’s Young Mothers Program. Happy Mother’s Day, Sarah! Congratulations
and thank you for joining us on Get Connected.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
106.7 Lite FM. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfmdotcom. Thanks for listening.

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