EXCLUSIVE: Youth addictions treatment centre to open in West End

A former youth correctional facility on Second Line West will soon reopen as a co-ed mental health and addiction treatment home for local youth, allowing them to remain in the community while receiving help for those issues.

The former Sault Ste Marie Observation and Detention Home at 631 Second Line West was renamed the Justice Derek Holder House in 2008. It delivered rehabilitative services to young people in the district of Algoma before closing in 2021. 

Soon it will reopen as an eight-bed, 24/7 operation offering mental health and addiction treatment to co-ed youth age 12 to 16.

Algoma Family Services is the lead agency for the project, along with the local social services administration board, Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services, Sault Ste. Marie Indian Friendship Centre, Sault Area Hospital and THRIVE Child Development Centre, according to a letter distributed to neighbours of the facility.

“For too long, children and youth with complex mental health and substance use challenges have had to leave our community to get the care they need,” said Ali Juma, CEO of Algoma Family Services, in the letter. “The live-in treatment program allows youth to get the care they need close to home.

Reached on Monday, Juma said he is unable to comment to media about the project at this time.

Among the programming to be offered will be individual therapy, group therapy, a sweat lodge, life skills coaching and development, as well as education and career planning.

In the letter, Algoma Family Services is inviting neighbours to an upcoming information session to learn more about the program, how it will be run and the services offered.

According to a current job listing by Algoma Family Services for the position of Child and Youth Care Practitioner - Live-in Treatment (CYCP-LIT), the facility will have eight beds and operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“The primary role of the CYCP-LIT is to provide a safe, welcoming, inclusive, stable, and nurturing environment (therapeutic milieu) that promotes behavioural change and growth through the incorporation of traditional Indigenous approaches to well-being blended with western scientific approaches,” said the job listing.

The job posting said the CYCP-LIT workers will operate in three shifts: day, evening and overnight, scheduled on a rotational basis.

Shortly after the closure of Holder House was announced, the now-disbanded group Citizens Helping Addicts and Alcoholics Get Treatment (CHAAT) sent an open letter to MPP Ross Romano asking that the site be reopened as a full-service addictions management treatment facility.