SUBSTANCE ABUSE PROGRAM TARGETS WOMEN IN NEED

Local women recovering from substance abuse will soon be able to access a
parenting and relapse prevention program close to home.

The Scarborough OASIS Addiction Recovery Society is partnering with the
local office of the Salvation Army Homestead to offer a new program for
women, which is slated to begin in January.

"We wanted to offer something different," said Leslie Bernard of Homestead
during a recent interview at the OASIS office on Eglinton Avenue.

She said the joint project will include a parenting group, which will run
for two mornings a week, and a relapse prevention program, which will be
held during two afternoon sessions each week.

"We want to be able to serve the communities that are under served,"
Bernard said.

The program will help mothers in recovery develop their parenting skills
while offering support in creating strategies to prevent a relapse.

"Ninety-nine per cent of the time when it comes to the addiction it is the
woman who is the primary caregiver," said MaryAnn Poulos of OASIS. "Men in
recovery for the most part are not the primary caregiver ... they are
transient."

Bernard and Poulos said the program will aim to look at the woman's whole
life while helping them through their recovery.

"We want to be working on something that keeps the children with the
mother. So the children will stay in or return to the home," Bernard said.

Both of the agencies are relatively new to the area.

"It's really difficult to bring new services to an area that is so
historically under served because people are so used to thinking there is
nothing here," Poulos said.

"We want it to be as easy to refer someone in Scarborough as it is to refer
someone in Toronto," she said, noting Scarborough is the most under served
community in Toronto when it comes to addiction services.

The Scarborough OASIS project, which officially opened its doors at 3160
Eglinton Ave. last month, is one of seven new addiction treatment services
that have grown out of the Scarborough Addiction Services Partnership
(SASP), formed in the spring of 2001 to address the shortfall of treatment
services in Scarborough.

"We've been building very fast," said Felix Munger, manager of SASP.

However, he reports provincial funding for the project will end in March of
2003.

"At the end of the day we want to serve the clients in Scarborough who have
not had the opportunity (to access services close to home)," he said.

Poulos said OASIS aims to provide a supportive and safe environment for
people in recovery from alcohol and drug addictions, while offering several
other support services such as workshops aimed at women and their families.

"This was all built by people in recovery, by volunteers. It was a totally
open space," said Poulos of the agency's facilities, which include a
resource room, a boardroom, a cafE area and office space.

"People believed in the principle of why we needed to be here and it's
amazing what they did."

The Scarborough Satellite program of Homestead, which began operating in
the fall of 2001 at 1225 Kennedy Rd., offers a range of services to help
women with chemical dependency including group counseling, life skills
programs, addiction education, conflict resolution, continuing care,
relapse prevention and anger management.

The two agencies are hoping to hire a local woman to serve as an outreach
worker to spread the word about the new parenting and relapse prevention
program, Bernard said.

For information about the outreach worker's position or about the agencies
and the services they offer, call Homestead at 416-431-8247 or OASIS at
416-265-3661.