Page 47 - BusinessWest January 10, 2022

New Lease on Life
Goodwin House Sets Teenage Boys on a Path to Recovery
By Joseph Bednar
Daniella Grimaldi has worked with young addicts long enough to know it can happen to anyone.
“I say this to everybody: you don’t know what you don’t know about your kids. You could have the best kids in the world and raise them the right away, but all they have to do is hang out with someone who’s doing the wrong thing. That’s when kids fall behind.”
“This is the age where, if you get the help you need, you’ll be more successful than if you get the help at 30 or 40 years old and know you’ve wasted all that time.”
And fall, all too often, into substance abuse. That’s where Goodwin House comes in.
“We are one of the only programs like this
in the state,” said Grimaldi, program director of the house in Chicopee opened by the Center for Human Development in 2017 and named after its long-time CEO, Jim Goodwin. Its clients are teenage boys, ages 13 to 17, who live there, often after a stint in detox, for 30 to 90 days in order
to recover from addiction and learn the coping mechanisms and life skills they need to be suc- cessful — and remain drug-free — afterward.
“There aren’t a lot of these programs for ado- lescents,” she went on. “But this is the age where, if you get the help you need, you’ll be more suc- cessful than if you get the help at 30 or 40 years
Daniella Grimaldi
says it often takes weeks for clients to warm to the program — but the results speak for themselves.
old and know you’ve wasted all that time engag- ing in substances and not getting help.
“I think it’s critical. A lot of our kiddos who leave us call us a year or two later and say, ‘I’m
Goodwin House
Continued on page 49
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