A central Iowa nonprofit will open a new addiction treatment facility for adolescents and young adults in Cambridge in December.
The $30 million project called Ember Recovery Campus, built by YSS, will have 70 beds and features a “nature-based, trauma-informed” site design. The four-building campus, funded through public and private dollars, includes two cabins for residential addiction treatment with 24 beds each, a shelter for crisis stabilization with 22 beds and a main hub that will house social services, activities and classes.
YSS, formerly known as Youth & Shelter Services, currently offers a residential addiction treatment program, as well as crisis stabilization and recovery services out of Ames but will move clients and staff to the new countryside facility.
Finally, we've got age appropriate treatment for young adults in Iowa.President and CEO of YSS
Andrew Allen, the president and CEO of YSS and an alumnus of the program, said the organization has offered addiction treatment for over 40 years and served 5,000 kids across the state.
“As we were thinking about the services that we're currently providing out of old houses, which are home-like, the space need[ed] to evolve to help meet the clinical needs of youth from across the state," Allen said. “Not only were we thinking about the facilities, but we were also thinking about the site, and there's a lot of research that shows nature is actually healing.”
According to the CDC, there were 384 overdose deaths in Iowa in 2022, and nearly 85% had at least one potential opportunity for intervention. Thirty of those deaths were people between the ages of 15 and 24.
Allen said the new Ember campus will help fill a gap in social services in Iowa, which currently lacks residential treatment programs geared specifically towards young adults between ages 18 and 24.
“Currently, if you are an adult — a young adult — and need treatment, you have to go to a treatment center that serves 60 year olds,” Allen said. “And so finally, we've got age appropriate treatment for young adults in Iowa.”
The organization's adolescent programs are available to kids between the ages of 12 and 18 who typically stay between three and four months, according to Angie Van Winkle, director of customer development and admissions at YSS. She said clients enrolled in the young adults program stay for a shorter period of time, around 28 to 45 days.
Nature-based healing
Allen said connection with nature as a form of healing was a core design philosophy for developing the site plan.
YSS partnered with an Iowa State University class led by landscape architecture professor Julie Stevens in 2021 and 2022 to create a “trauma-informed” site plan. YSS youth came to the studios and shared their experiences and preferences for the space with the ISU students, who then collaborated with the architecture firm, RDG Planning & Design, to develop a master plan based around the feedback.
“As you sit here, you feel connected to nature,” Allen said. “You feel disconnected from the cacophony of the busyness of town. This is a place where kids and families will come to heal.”
Cabin windows in the bedrooms and common spaces allow natural light to come in and are positioned to overlook nature trails and prairie — parts of which are restricted from development due to prairie conservation easement requirements.
The campus’s cabins include kitchens and communal spaces, as well as rooms for telehealth appointments, meditation and group sessions. Allen and Van Winkle said they wanted the new space to retain the comfortable feel of the Ames houses.
“The buildings are designed to look like homes,” Allen said. “So while the [central] lodge that we're in now is big, each of the cabins has a low profile. It's not overwhelming, such that, as youth approach it, it feels like a home away from home.”
Wood and stone exteriors and gabled roofs also help create a homelike feel for residents. Plus, the new cabins incorporate a beloved feature from the Ames homes — a three-season porch that has been upgraded into a four-season porch at the new facility.
“The girls spend a lot of time out there,” Van Winkle said. “They do their visits out there when the weather is nice. They do a lot of painting out there, go read books out there, [it's] just kind of a space to get away from their normal living space.”
In the future, Van Winkle said a man-made pond behind the cabins will provide residents with fishing opportunities and will double as a stormwater retention space. A greenhouse and sensory garden will also provide hands-on opportunities for students to be outdoors.
“Touching the plants, immersing themselves in the space — the colors are all trauma-informed so as not to exacerbate emotional states and to provide a calming presence,” Allen said.
Across the campus, the building that serves as the central hub will house a cafeteria, fitness center, gymnasium, recreational room and extra rooms for one-on-one therapy sessions. The building also has classrooms where students can work with an in-person teacher on remote classes to help them earn credits toward graduation requirements.
For young adults, the hub will house a computer lab, where staff will support clients on college and vocational paths. However, Van Winkle said those services are flexible and can be focused on more basic steps first.
“Some come in and they don't even have a driver's license, so [we’re] just getting them connected to all those things,” Van Winkle said. “Maybe they'll be applying for jobs with us, working on resumes, those kinds of things. We'll really be focusing on that next step for our young adults once they come to us.”
Allen said he’s hopeful the state will allocate more funds toward youth recovery programs, but is excited for the campus’s larger capacity, which will allow YSS to serve more clients without turning families away.
“There still is a stigma with substance use disorder,” he said. "The reality is, it's a disease that's diagnosable and it's treatable. What we're saying is that treatment works and recovery is possible and recovery is expected.”
