By Joe Jarosz
Northeast News
May 27, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — May was a big month for several area families.

Seven mothers successfully made the journey from homelessness to self-sufficiency over the past year by securing permanent housing, increasing their education and/or job skills, and improving their mental and physical health, including improved parenting and abstinence from alcohol and other drugs. This was all done with the help from the people at Sheffield Place.

Sheffield Place is a treatment and transitional living program for homeless mothers and their children in Northeast Kansas City, Mo. Their mission is to to empower area homeless mothers and to heal from their trauma and help them become self-sufficient. Last week, those seven mothers, accompanied by their children, were honored during a graduation and awards ceremony by the staff at Sheffield Place.

Many of the program’s participants come from the court system, treatment centers, area homeless shelters and, from time to time, prisons. Kelly Welch, executive director of Sheffield Place, said these participants want to commit to a change of lifestyle.

“This is a trauma based program and we have the women deal with old trauma,” Welch said, adding the women see therapists and are assigned case managers who help them re-assimilate back to day-to-day life.

Sheffield Place serves 55 families each year at its facility. Families stay an average of seven months and receive intensive mental health services, case management, and life skills training. Once families stabilize and gain skills, they transition to housing in the community. They may continue to receive case management and other supportive services for as long as required through the Aftercare Program, which will serve 35 families in 2015.

Angy Kilgore knows all too well how much the program can help. A graduate of the program, Kilgore attends events and functions to stay in touch with those at Sheffield Place who helped change her life around. In 2013, Kilgore was involved in a domestic situation that lead to her and her family living in her car for several months before they got accepted into the program at Sheffield Place.

“The biggest help was the therapist,” Kilgore said. “They listened and helped me see things from a new perspective.”

If she ever meets people who need the kind of help she had, Kilgore is always quick to recommend Sheffield Place.

“They will be there for you if you’re serious about making the right changes for your life,” Kilgore said. “They help with all the legalities and everything to make sure you can move on. I felt the safest I had ever felt at Sheffield and didn’t want to leave, but now we live on our own and I haven’t felt this good about life in a long time.”