About Us

Aloha House is a private, nonprofit corporation established in 1977 for the purpose of providing outpatient and residential treatment for persons addicted to alcohol and/or other drugs. Since that time, the mission has been expanded to include provision of comprehensive, family-centered behavioral health interventions for the prevention and treatment of individual and family dysfunction. The mission of our Substance Abuse Services Division is to assist persons addicted to drugs and/or alcohol to achieve and maintain healthy and sober lifestyles. The mission of our Mental Health and Social Services/Child and Adolescent Mental Health programs is to help children with emotional and behavioral impairments achieve optimal functioning in their schools, in their homes, and in the community.

Consistent with the agency’s philosophy, all clients are treated with respect and dignity and as human beings who are inherently capable of making positive choices and positive changes in their lives. Client rights and measures of confidentiality are strictly enforced at AHI, and clients are encouraged to utilize the grievance process for perceived or realized conflicts with staff or other clients. Each staff is individually trained in the areas of ethics, integrity, and professionalism as a measure of assuring appropriate, professional attention and care of clients.

AHI utilizes a full continuum of care for our clients. Clients are provided with the least intrusive level of care indicated by assessment. According to need and progress toward treatment goals, clients are either recommended for a more intensive level of care (for example a move from outpatient to residential, or from residential to day treatment, or from day treatment to outpatient). Treatment is “client driven”, meaning that clients are involved in the treatment planning process. In fact, clients sign all treatment plans in which they are involved. Clients are made aware of all recommendations made by the Treatment Team, and are kept apprised of progress, or lack of progress, made toward treatment goals and strategies.

As AHI strongly believes that family involvement is often imperative to a “successful treatment experience”; clients are encouraged to allow family involvement by signing appropriate confidentiality release. However, family involvement does not negate the importance of confidentiality, and clients are assured that issues that surface in treatment will not be discussed with the client’s family without prior approval from the client. Specifically, we seek to: 1) help people achieve abstinence from alcohol and other drugs; 2) assist clients in the establishment of healthy relationships; 3) improve family relationships (direct family involvement with consent of client); 4) increase educational and vocational potential; 5) help clients maintain a sober and drug-free life in the community, through acquisition of decision-making skills, knowledge of addiction, healthy options information and tools for recovery; 6) provide the community with a resource that will help to serve clients whose substance abuse problems are negatively affecting their involvement in their homes and community; 8) help clients overcome destructive patterns; gain self-esteem and overcome guilt, shame, meaninglessness and despair.

AHI adheres to the National Institute of Drug Abuse “Principles of Effective Treatment”, which state:
1. No single treatment is appropriate for all individuals.
2. Treatment needs to be readily accessible.
3. Effective treatment attends to multiple needs of the individual, not just his or her drug use.
4. An individual’s treatment and services plan must be assessed continually and modified periodically to ensure that the plan meets the person’s changing needs.
5. Remaining in treatment for an adequate period of time is critical for treatment effectiveness.
6. Individual and/or group counseling and other behavioral therapies are critical components of effective treatment for addiction.
7. Medications are an important element of treatment for many patients, especially when combined with counseling and other behavioral therapies.
8. Addicted or drug-abusing individuals with coexisting mental disorders should have both disorders treated in an integrated way.
9. Medical detoxification is only the first stage of addiction treatment and by itself does little to change long-term drug use.
10. Treatment does not need to be voluntary to be effective.
11. Possible drug use during treatment must be monitored continuously.
12. Treatment programs should provide assessment for HIV/AIDS, Hep B and C, TB, and other infectious diseases, and counseling t help individuals modify or change behaviors that place themselves or others at risk of infection.
13. Recovery from drug addiction can be a long-term process and frequently requires multiple episodes of treatment.

Our mental health services/programs also encompass the following:
• High quality, comprehensive case management, guided by the recovery model of service provision;
• An emphasis on self-determination, individualized services, disease self-management, and self-management of life issues;
• An emphasis on the centrality of the individual, in their personal definition of meaning and purpose, and the belief that despite the ongoing presence of the illness, people continue to develop;
• Our highly skilled, trained and supervised clinicians, as part of a multi-professional treatment team, who will make substantial and sustained efforts to engage all consumers referred to the service. A focus on cultural competence and a demonstrated ability to work successfully with the various cultural populations in Maui County is provided for all consumers. A warm and welcoming, empathic and integrated approach to working with consumers is a mainstay of our services.
• Our ongoing commitment to serve all referred consumers (no refusal policy);
• The organizational leadership, stability and infrastructure needed for successful service provision.

We believe that our approach assures a highly accountable and accessible system of care that is closely coordinated with all stakeholders; and results in successful outcomes based upon an effective quality management system. Our services are supported by sound financial management structure of Aloha House, Inc., which has provided contracted behavioral health care in Hawaii for thirty years.

Necessary Skills

Aloha House, Inc. has assembled an impressive cadre of professional and paraprofessional staff to deliver mental health and substance abuse interventions. Our clinical programming features the following strong components:

• Multi-professional clinical management team that includes professionals in the fields of clinical social work, clinical psychology, psychiatry, and supervises a staff of employees and contractors in those fields, as well as nurses, marriage and family therapists, clinical interns and practicum students, and paraprofessionals;
• Ongoing recruitment for the necessary highly skilled staff we require in order to provide excellent service;
• Rigorous supervision standards and ethical and clinical requirements, always with the focus on quality outcomes for consumers;
• Senior clinicians monitor “best practice/evidence-based practice” research to integrate into programming;
• Established, collegial relationships with State clinicians in the determination of the highest quality care for consumers.

Services, including treatment and discharge planning are fully integrated with the appropriate public and private agencies to insure that treatment gains are sustained upon re-entry into the community following treatment. Emphasis is placed upon those factors that affect recovery outcomes.

• the realization of recovery, vocational and personal goals;
• the lessening or elimination of debilitating symptoms;
• the minimizing or prevention of recurrent acute episodes of the illness through rehabilitation and progressive treatment interventions;
• utilizing a multi-professional team to deliver recovery-oriented treatment in natural environments, chosen by the consumer;
• ensuring consumers have the basic needs and skills for sustaining community living and enhancing their quality of life;
• improving or establishing new linkages with a variety of community services and mobilizing the involvement of the consumer’s support network;
• providing coordination and continuity of care by including all treatment and service-delivery professionals to participate in planning with the consumer;
• maintaining consumer engagement in treatment through relapse and recovery;
• promoting consumer empowerment to increase consumer’s abilities to lead satisfying, hopeful and contributing lives;
• teaching symptom monitoring and management skills;
• and promoting crisis prevention, planning, harm reduction, substance use reduction, abstinence, and recovery for consumers with co-occurring substance abuse/addiction by providing substance abuse services.

Our treatment approach represents “best practices/evidence-based practices” in the fields of mental health and substance abuse/chemical dependency, and our staff receive ongoing training and clinical supervision to insure that we are employing the most current and effective methods of intervention.

Administrative skills are essential to good outcomes for consumers, and for the successful longevity of the agency. AHI has a long track record of stability and growth in the community, always seeking to provide high-quality services for our community, and demonstrating the following administrative assets:

• Full CARF accreditation ongoing for six years;
• Administrative infrastructure and leadership experienced with procuring and monitoring State of Hawaii contracts with several Departments, including AMHD, CAMHD, DOE, the Judiciary and DHS;
• A strong fiscal foundation with yearly audits performed;
• Updated MIS systems compatible with all State and other payor requirements;
• A system of continuous quality improvement designed to monitor key quality indicators, including client satisfaction surveys, resulting in reporting, development of improvement and corrective action plans;
• The presence of skilled support staff, with negligible staff turnover;
• Our facilities meet all State and local standards for health and safety.

Excellence in Key Clinical Leadership
AHI is fortunate to have a clinical leadership group of seasoned professionals dedicated to high quality of services and improving outcomes. Positive provider and stakeholder response to our Management Team has consistently been a strength of our programs.

Malama Family Recovery Center

Aloha House, Inc. has, since 2000, had a partnership with Malama Na Makua A Keiki (d.b.a. Malama Family Recovery Center (MFRC)), which is the only agency on Maui providing a continuum of gender specific substance abuse treatment services to women who have a chemical dependency problem. Gender specificity in treatment is central to successful outcomes because females who abuse substances share common life experiences and have needs distinct from their male counterparts. Typically, women represent a minority of the client population in substance abuse treatment programs that have gender-mixed populations. Because of women’s unique experiences and needs, this population requires enhanced programming related to mental health and medical needs, victimization issues, parenting and family issues, child care, transportation, financial, employment and vocational needs. MFRC integrates culturally competent strategies that incorporate Hawaiian and “local” culture in the healing of substance abuse problems in our community.

Pregnant and parenting women have priority in receiving services at MFRC. The earlier we intervene with these families, the higher the success in breaking the generational cycle of drug abuse, victimization, and incarceration that has become so costly to our community in both human and financial terms. Because the women we serve are a “high needs”, difficult to reach population, we eliminate the most common barriers to treatment by offering transportation to and from our facility, child-care, and nutritional meals to program participants and their children. While receiving Intensive Outpatient Treatment services in order to break the cycle of their addiction, their children are nurtured in an environment that allows them to heal from negative life experiences. Case management services are provided to our clients to ensure that the wide range of their needs are met by the numerous community agencies with which we collaborate.