View Royal recovery community for women opens, eyes future home for family reunification

A new recovery community for women, two-spirit and gender diverse people is taking a phased approach to its grand opening – and already eyeing another vision for the future of its program.

Three women, or “the first ladies” call New Roads Women’s Therapeutic Recovery Community home for long-term treatment from substance use in View Royal. And with 20 publicly funded beds, there are more on the way.

“It’s just so overwhelmingly positive. We have worked for four years,” says New Roads director Cheryl Diebel. “We’ve had such good support.”

The therapeutic recovery community for substance use challenges has built a wing for the women’s program separate from the men’s facility in the same site at Talcott Road, which staff say is crucial.

“We need to recognize that many of the women we’re going to work with, probably most of them, will have a trauma background especially as it relates to relationships with men and intimate partner violence,” says Diebel.

Similar to the men’s program, New Roads for women gives priority to patients who’ve experienced long-standing challenges with addiction, incarceration and housing instability. They can stay for up to two years. And on the women’s side, all of the staff members are female.

WOMEN SUPPORTING WOMEN

“I identify as a woman in recovery and today I have a life that just over 12 years [ago], I never could have imagined possible,” says New Roads WTRC manager, Lee Sundquist.

She spoke at the centre’s launch with B.C.’s Health Minister Josie Osborne, earlier this week. Sundquist told the crowd of allies and regional mayors that as a child, she never planned to become an addict.

“I had hopes and dreams just like all my other childhood friends,” she says.

She put substances in her body at the age of 12, fueling a life of addiction, trauma, abuse and involvement with the criminal justice system. While a single mom with two daughters, she says she was given the opportunity through a judge to leave the island 12 years ago and seek treatment.

“I was lucky, really lucky,” says Sundquist. “Once I returned home, I had to rebuild my support system again from the ground up.”

The manager says women on the island will have a chance to access treatment they need and deserve, without the “heartbreaking” choice of leaving everything behind.

The centre, run by Our Place Society, has fundraised $3.7 million to renovate and build out the space, which features colourful paintings donated by a local artist.

“So many of us have been touched by friends or family with/about the addiction issues generally and we’re frightened by it,” says philanthropist Lyndsay Green.

She helped lead a group of donors called Women for Women that helped support the capital cost with $50,000 They have a plaque in the lobby of the women’s centre with each name that says: “These 160 women believe in you.”

“I think there’s going to be more and more support for this. And well, there should be,” says Green. “People are supported for a good long period of time, because we can’t have instant change as we know that in our own lives. It takes time, it takes support. But the other part that I love about this program is you cannot heal unless you have agency. You cannot heal unless you have a sense that you are contributing as well as receiving.”

The program encourages people to take on responsibilities such as growing food, preparing meals and taking on community projects.

New Roads leadership says the program works to reintegrate people back into their communities – and there’s a strong focus on family reunification.

FAMILY REUNIFICATION, FUTURE PLANNING

“When you’re in addiction, you become disconnected and they’re disconnected from their families, their friends and all of those good things that we thrive on. And so having this reunification allows for that connection,” says Diebel.

New Roads and Our Place Society have initiated a fundraising campaign for the next phase of the team’s vision. For women with children in government care, it wants to fund a reunification home similar to a second stage of recovery, where the parent can live with their child in a safe, supportive environment.

“For me on a personal level, the work that I have done throughout my career prior to coming to B.C. was in children’s services and protective custody services for children. And so for me, family reunification and that have having family at the centre of our work is super important,” says Diebel.

New Roads figures it needs $4.5 million to make it happen. It’s already raised $1million.

“The women that are applying to our program are telling us that they want to recover. They want to reclaim their lives so that they can get their children back,” says Sundquist.