Addiction recovery center set to open in Dickenson County

Kentucky-based Addiction Recovery Care is expanding its addiction recovery services into Virginia. Opening in Dickenson County in early to mid-2024, Wildwood Recovery Center, ARC’s first recovery center in the state, will provide treatment for substance use disorders in a residential program allowing individuals to stay for up to one year.

ARC’s mission goes beyond recovery, also providing job training, educational opportunities and post-treatment employment options.

“We have developed a very nimble training and education division inside the organization, and so we can meet with an employer who has labor needs and we can tailor training programs to meet those needs, and we can supply employees to them,” ARC President Matt Brown says.

ARC plans to offer skilled trades and vocational training such as welding, carpentry and culinary arts at the center.

Dickenson County Economic Development Director Dana Cronkhite says the site of the recovery center was intentional, located across the road from the Red Onion Industrial Park, which is set to be completed around the same time. The Dickenson County IDA hopes to leverage ARC’s workforce training programs when marketing the industrial site.

“The Dickenson County leadership and Board of Supervisors and Industrial Development Authority recognize the correlation between substance use disorder and the deficits in our workforce, and this is our way to try to work towards correcting that issue,” Cronkhite says.

The center has 112 beds for men, and ARC has announced plans to add a women’s center in the county later. The men’s center will create 50 jobs in the county, including nurses, clinicians and peer support specialists, as well as daily support staff such as certified maintenance workers and kitchen staff.

Peer support specialists use their firsthand recovery experience to help others who are in and seeking recovery from substance use disorders. In Kentucky and Virginia, individuals who have been in recovery for a year and meet requirements can become certified peer support specialists and are then eligible for employment with ARC.

Dickenson County is using $250,000 from the Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority to purchase furniture, fixtures and equipment for the center. Contractors were on track to finish construction at the facility by the end of 2023. Occupancy certifications and licensing and credentialing must be obtained before ARC can begin accepting clients at the center. That process, Brown says, will begin once construction is complete.