Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority
Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority
In Roanoke, a specialized residential program is doing what the broader system rarely does: meeting pregnant women and new mothers where they are — and refusing to let them go.
She has or is using drugs. She is pregnant. And in the eyes of a society and system that has never quite figured out what to do with her, she is the hardest case — the one most likely to be punished, least likely to be helped.
"In this society we reserve no more shame for any other group of people than pregnant women who use drugs,” said Ali Hamed-Moore, MPA, Chief Administrative Officer of The Grove on Patterson. We cover them up with shame and then we wonder why they won't seek treatment. And when they don't seek treatment we punish them and take their babies from them."
Consider what that looks like in one mid-sized Virginia city.
Roanoke has roughly 99,000 people. It also has the highest number of children in foster care in Virginia, and a rate of neonatal abstinence syndrome — babies born in withdrawal — that runs two and a half times the state average, Hamed-Moore said.
Behind those numbers are mothers. And behind those mothers are stories the system has largely failed to rewrite.
The shame becomes the sentence. And the babies pay it, too.
"We don't really have time to talk about how bad things are," Hamed-Moore said. “"If we just accept what is — which is there are pregnant women who use drugs, and their babies are at risk of not being raised by their mother — then we just need to do something about that. Let's just do something to keep mothers and their children together."
So they did.
A Moment of Clarity
There is something that happens when a woman who is using drugs discovers she is pregnant. A flicker. A shift.
It’s, Hamed-Moore said, “where they decide they want something different. Even if they’re not entirely sure that they want to be in recovery for themselves, they do it for their baby initially. And then (while they’re at Grove), we see…that it then becomes for themselves.”
The Grove is designed to catch that moment and hold it.
The Grove brings together the full constellation of care that recovery — and new parenthood — demands.
At its core, The Grove is a specialized residential recovery program that provides up to six months of housing and treatment for pregnant women and new mothers navigating substance use disorder.
“The Grove on Patterson brings together not only substance use disorder treatment and those supportive services,” said Roanoke Mayor Joe Cobb. “It brings together the prenatal health, the maternal health. Community resources, because that support is so essential to people going through recovery.”
It’s all a critical collaboration, Cobb said, because “the moms here at The Grove and their babies need to know that this is a place where they can rest, feel safe, and where they are going to grow.”
The residence itself — renovated by partner Restoration Housing — is a historic home that feels like one. Warm, inviting, and designed for comfort. Not a facility. A home.
Anderson Treatment Center’s clinical team coordinates medication-assisted treatment with personalized care plans for residents. Prenatal and maternal health services are provided on site or in the community. Mental health professionals offer care specific to the path each woman is on. And a devoted staff, parenting classes, and peer recovery specialists round out the daily experience of life at The Grove.
In its first year of operation, The Grove documented outcomes that reflect the scope of that care:
These are not abstract metrics. They are the texture of daily life for women doing the hardest work of their lives.
Trust Has to Be Earned
Women who arrive at The Grove have often spent years in a system that responded to their addiction with punishment. They know, acutely, the difference between being helped and being managed. They arrive carrying guilt, grief, and the learned instinct not to trust what they haven’t yet seen proven.
“We never expect them to just come in trusting us,” Hamed-Moore said. “We earn it. We earn it by creating a safe space, by telling them they’re worthy, by providing for them while they’re here and doing everything that we say we’ll do.”
“I know that people who have come from backgrounds of trauma — they can tell when you’re being authentic, they can tell when you’re being real, and they can certainly tell when you show up and do what you say you’re going to do.”
One resident described arriving “drowned in guilt and shame” — and the disorienting relief of stepping into a place that simply said: we’re here to help.
“A lot of times I feel like when we use, you forget how to live,” said Chelsea Wilson, the peer recovery specialist at The Grove. “You forget how to be an adult. So we get to help with that. We get to be on a journey, on their journey, every step of the way.”
The Moment the Walls Come Down
For many women who arrive at The Grove, the hardest thing is not getting clean. It’s letting themselves love.
Some have lost custody before. Some have lived through enough loss to know that loving deeply means risking deeply. So when they give birth again, it can feel safer to hold back — to keep the walls up, just in case.
And then something shifts.
“The moment when you see a mom lean in and just…” Hamed-Moore said, trailing off.
“When you watch someone fall in love with a baby — it’s everything,” she added. “The parental separation from children is so harmful. It is a primal wound that children never get over. And so watching women decide that they can do this, that they can be a parent — you just know it’s going to have this effect.”
Turning the Corner for a Family’s Future
The very first graduate of The Grove on Patterson stood in front of Roanoke Mayor Joe Cobb and received a hug. A full-circle moment. Not just completion — transformation.
Her name is Stephanie Campbell. She spent much of her adult life in active addiction. She has now spent the last year in active recovery. When asked to describe herself, she didn’t hesitate.
“Let me tell you who Stephanie is,” she said. “I’m a strong woman that never gives up. I used (drugs) because I didn’t know who I was. I’ve been beat on so much and told that I wasn’t worth it. And then this program saved me. It taught me who I was and what I can do.”
That is what Mayor Cobb meant when he stood at The Grove and said: “Having the opportunity for a house like this to convey such hope and love and wellbeing into the community just means that we’re going to be able to do more of this, not just in Roanoke, but throughout the nation.”
The ripple effect of what happens inside The Grove extends far beyond the women who live there.
The Grove is going to “make an impact on the current generation and the next generation, because this does keep going until someone doesn’t experience it anymore,” said Donna Littlepage, The Grove’s first Executive Director. “If we can help these little ones, then hopefully their children will never find themselves in that same place either. We will have, in essence, turned the corner for that branch of that family. And then we just keep doing it over and over again.”
That is what real investment in recovery looks like. Not just programs. Not just funding. Healthier people. Healthier families. Healthier communities — one mother, one baby, one moment of love at a time.
The Grove on Patterson is made possible through a Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority award to the City of Roanoke in partnership with Roanoke County.
