1. HISTORY
In 1969, Sidney Shankman, M.D. founded Second Genesis, one of the largest
nonprofit providers of therapeutic community services to combat addiction
in the mid-Atlantic region. The therapeutic community model provides a safe
environment for individuals to confront their problematic thinking patterns and
behaviors. This effective approach affords clients the opportunity to absorb
standards for healthy living as they are firmly and lovingly held accountable for
their conduct and choices.
Today, Second Genesis serves approximately 1200
clients a year at its one outpatient and five residential
treatment centers in Maryland and Washington, DC. A
second chance at life has been given to over 30,000
men and women, including pregnant women, women
with their children, clients with co-occurring disorders,
and teenagers with their families. The mission of Second Genesis is to empower
individuals and families with the tools to break the cycle of addiction.
“If it wasn’t for the women and children’s program at Second
Genesis, I wouldn’t have gone in to treatment.”
SERVICES FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Since 1994, Second Genesis’s Women and Children’s
program , Mellwood House, located in the country
in Upper Marlboro, Maryland has been a home to
thousands of women and their children. At this 68
acre estate, families are being restored and are just
beginning to function as a healthy unit for the very
first time. In fact, Mellwood is one of the few programs in the greater Washington
area that permits women to bring their children to live with them while receiving
treatment. While living at Mellwood, women and their children receive family
services aimed at strengthening the family unit. Family services include: an
umbrella of comprehensive treatment initiatives that focus on addiction
education and recovery, improving familial bonds, improving parenting skills,
working through grief, and healing from trauma. As part of the family program,
young children participate in enrichment activities while the older children, up
to age 11, attend the Elementary and Middle Schools. The goals of the program
are to: provide quality, inpatient rehabilitative services to women and children;
help women to balance helping themselves and raising their children; and give
mothers the chance to have their children develop physically, emotionally, and
academically, so that their kids can just “be kids”.

2. “It’s a miracle factory over there. They believed in me.”
Yvonne Walker is shown here speaking to the
women at the recent Mellwood graduation in
September 2009. With nine years of sobriety, she
is grateful for the program at Second Genesis.
Having a safe place to go with her child and
having the chance to change made all the
difference for her. Yvonne arrived at Mellwood
with her two year old son in 2000. Leaving an
abusive relationship, she came to Second
Genesis from Reality House with a commitment
to quitting her crack cocaine and alcohol
addiction. She is now: employed full-time by the
Department of Rehabilitative Services; closing on
her very first home; and beginning a Bachelors
degree in Workplace Communication at the
University of Maryland, paid for by her employer.
Happily, Yvonne reports that her son, who came with her to Mellwood, is now an
honor roll student in the 6th grade.
8611 Second Avenue * Silver Spring, MD 20910-3372 * www.secondgenesis.org