Turning Point celebrates 50 years of culturally specific care

Turning Point, Inc. MN, a North Minneapolis substance abuse treatment center serving the African American community, celebrated its 50th anniversary this week. The milestone is a testament to the center’s culturally specific approach to treatment.

After undergoing treatment himself in a primarily white treatment facility, Turning Point founder Peter Hayden decided that Black people struggling with substance abuse needed a program that would help them in a culturally informed way. On June 1, 1976, he founded Turning Point.

With an almost entirely African American staff and clientele, Turning Point’s culturally specific approach is rooted in understanding, familiarity and a sense of family.

“We understand how we talk, how we live, we breathe,” current CEO Lori Wilson said. “You have to understand, culturally, what makes people comfortable in settings like treatment that are not so comfortable.”

Staff, familiar with how clients were raised and the generational trauma they have faced, aim to provide the support system that they themselves have found in Black communities. For Wilson, this is embodied in the sense of family that underlies Turning Point’s “no shame in coming back” mindset.

“No matter where you are … if there’s a slip of some sort, there’s always a place here for you,” Wilson said. “No matter how many times you come back, one of those times you’re going to get it right, and we are always going to support you throughout it.”

Additionally, Turning Point’s curriculum includes Black mental health, personal triggers and unseen traumas. For instance, some staff talk to their clients about narratives around Black masculinity, such as “deadbeat dads.” Turning Point, once a women’s treatment center, now focuses entirely on men.

The center also considers African American traditions around food. Staff make clients’ comfort foods and use food to bring people together.

“In the African American community, food is a very important part of our culture,” Wilson said. “Having conversations around the table really enriches the conversation, and you feel those barriers start to break down. The barriers need to break down in order to get down to the root of the situation.”

“We don’t want to take the familiarity out of the clients’ lives as they’re going through treatment,” Turning Point executive assistant DeAndre Morris Jr. added.

When former client Byron Jeffery arrived at Turning Point for treatment, this reality, so different from what he had known of recovery centers from TV, was foreign to him.

“To go to Turning Point, for me, was to see others that look like me,” Jeffery said. Although it remained hard for him to build trust at first because he had experienced trauma from people who look like him, Turning Point staff took time with him and talked to him with care and concern.

Jeffery is now 10½ years clean and has returned to Turning Point as an employee. He went to school for counseling while living in Turning Point housing and has worked at the treatment center as a licensed alcohol and drug counselor for three years.

“It made me feel good to work with somebody that was struggling with drugs, and see them get off of drugs, get a job, transform their life, get back in a kid’s life,” Jeffery said. “That was really my breakthrough for understanding my calling.”

Jeffery is one of 25,000 clients who have passed through Turning Point’s doors over the past half-century.

As the staff member who administers end-of-program surveys, Morris hears, in clients’ words, the way Turning Point has impacted them. He said clients write that they developed understanding and growth within themselves during their time at the center.

“Everybody that comes through here, they leave here with a purpose,” Morris said. “They leave here knowing that they can be successful in the world, when the world had kicked them down when they were in addiction.”

At its milestone anniversary, Turning Point is looking toward the next 50 years.

The center’s facilities, which Wilson said have looked similar for decades, are undergoing renovations. As opioid overdose deaths are rising in Black communities, and Wilson said about 60% of Turning Point clients use opioids in some form, the center currently holds 24 beds. After the renovations, it will aim to house 60 and to add a detox or pain management facility.

Turning Point is also updating its treatment curriculum. The new curriculum, adopted in January, includes a deeper focus on mental health and approaches the topic from a Black lens, according to Morris.

The center has also reconnected with community partners who specialize in harm reduction, housing and job opportunities.

Returning to these community connections underscores the role Turning Point has come to hold in North Minneapolis over the decades.

“It’s a staple,” Wilson said. “You know that if you go down, your family member goes down, one of your loved ones goes down, you can send them to Turning Point and get that love and care that they deserve.”

For more information on Turning Point, visit www.turningpointmn.com.

Ella Stern is a contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.