YOUTH ADDICTION FACILITY ON UNCERTAIN GROUND

Health Agency Studies Kanata Site As Critics Blast South Ottawa
Locale

In a last-ditch effort to secure an ideal site for Ottawa's youth drug
treatment centre, the region's health-planning agency will attempt to
have the facility located in Kanata on property owned by the Royal
Ottawa Health Care Group.

If a deal can't be reached by early next week, the Champlain Local
Health Integration Network (LHIN) will have no choice but to approve
the purchase of a property in south Ottawa, which opponents say is a
"toxic environment" unsuited to helping young addicts.

Either way, a decision on where the region's first residential
treatment centre is located must be made before Oct. 2, when a
conditional offer on the property on Baycrest Drive, near Heron and
Walkley roads, expires.

Health officials are concerned about unnecessary delays getting the
program off the ground given that 490 people are already on the
waiting list. They are also worried about losing $2.4 million in
annual provincial funding set aside for the centre once it opens.

"This has taken a long time already, and it's time to get those
services out," Marie Fortier, chairwoman of the Champlain LHIN, said
Wednesday during a meeting of the agency's board.

It's unclear whether the 130-acre Kanata property near Carp Road would
be rented or purchased from the Royal Ottawa. However, if a deal is
reached, the treatment centre would open quickly with 10 beds in an
existing facility on the site and, in the longer term, build a larger
space that could accommodate up to 30 beds.

As organizers argue over where to put the facility, though, experts
say there are successful programs in the country and in inner-city
neighbourhoods.

Irvin Waller, director of the Institute for the Prevention of Crime at
the University of Ottawa, gives the example of California, where some
of the most effective programs to reduce drug use and violence are
located in urban areas.

"People have been arguing that it's better to have them in cities
because you can help people prepare for re-integration," Waller said.
"These people are going to go out from this program back to their
neighbourhoods, so the closer you are to where they will go out, often
the better it is for them."

A 90-minute ride outside Toronto, the Pine River Institute makes a
virtue of its location in "taking a young person out of their
environment so that they can recover from this substance abuse and
start to deal with the underlying mental health issues," says Karen
Minden, Pine River's chief executive.

The two treatment agencies that would work together to staff the new
centre say the south Ottawa site is a "toxic environment" unsuited to
helping young addicts. The Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre and the
Alwood Treatment Centre in Carleton Place prefer a youth treatment
facility in a rural setting, which, they say, helps shield addicts
from negative influences, allowing them to focus on
rehabilitation.

The United Way, charged with finding a site and the money to pay for
it, identified the former convent on Baycrest Drive. Organizers had
hoped to get the centre running by December, but the location issue is
threatening to delay the opening.

Those opposed say a key concern is the site's proximity to an area
known for drug-related crime, but experts say the location debate
distracts from the need to establish a clinically sound treatment
program supported by the facilities in which it's based.

"There should be a good match between the clinical approach and the
setting," said Russell Callaghan, a specialist in youth addictions at
Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. For example,
rehabilitation programs based on recreational therapy, such as Outward
Bound, are well suited for a rural location, whereas programs based on
cognitive behaviour therapy and family counselling are more
appropriate in urban settings, Callaghan said.

Pine River, set on a 200-acre campus, combines an intensive outdoor
recreation program with cognitive behaviour therapy and lifeskills
development, drawing on U.S.-style residential treatment approaches.
It also has a downtown Toronto office that facilitates the transition
of young addicts back into their communities and monitors their
progress after discharge.

The centre has been in the works for a decade, but only started taking
clients in 2006. Minden said the Rotary Club of Toronto, an early Pine
River supporter, initially preferred to see the centre in a downtown
neighbourhood, but was eventually convinced of the merits of having it
in a rural setting.

Other providers say it doesn't matter where a treatment centre is
located as long as addicts can put some distance between themselves
and the environment that triggers their substance abuse.