Recovery centre continues to do important work

 

Kenneth Brown
of The Crossroads

There are important and active things happening in Leipzig even though any hustle and bustle in the community became a thing of the past a long time ago.

The former village of Leipzig, a hamlet located west of Landis, is home to the Prairie Sky Recovery Centre Inc. The recovery centre, the only one of its kind in Saskatchewan, has been helping people to overcome their alcohol and drug addictions for a decade.

Formerly known as Leipzig Serenity Retreat, the Prairie Sky Recovery Centre is pretty much all that remains active in the former village. There is little to no trace of the businesses that once lined the community’s busiest street. The community is also home to the St. Paschel Catholic Church.

The steeple of the church is about the only thing a person sees when passing the hamlet on Grid 657, but the private recovery centre is only a short walk from the church. The recovery centre is located in an old boarding school.

With its 20,000 square feet and four floors, the Notre Dame Convent was built in 1927. The boarding school facility was purchased by Ardyth Wilson in 2008 and the building is known as the Ardyth House. The building was purchased for the purpose of establishing an addictions treatment centre.

Jacqueline Hoffman, chief executive officer (CEO) for Prairie Sky Recovery Centre, is Wilson’s daughter. Hoffman took over the operation in 2016 after Wilson fell ill and needed to end her hands-on involvement with the centre.

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She noted that she grew up in her mother’s recovery from addiction and, later in her life, her mother began looking for a suitable location to run an addictions program. She eventually happened across the property in Leipzig, and now the centre has operated for 10 years. It is the only private recovery centre in Saskatchewan.

Hoffman, who began working at the centre before she took over as CEO in 2016, said she “just fell in love with the building” over time. Her mother blindfolded her on her first visit to surprise her. She soon wanted to get more involved.

“I wanted to be a part of what she was doing out here,” Hoffman said, recognizing she started helping out at the centre in 2011 and she helped over time by printing program materials, running errands, cooking, baking and housekeeping before taking an administrative role.

It cost approximately $1 million to transform the then 80-year-old school building into an operational addictions treatment centre, she said. The school closed in 1969 and it signalled the end of future growth in the community.

The building was renovated to include living quarters for men on one floor and women on another floor, meeting spaces, learning spaces, a dining area to attach to the kitchen, and new arts and crafts room among other features. Every inch of the building has been renovated.

An older house has been moved to the property, and it sits about 100 feet away from the Ardyth House. Hoffman said the plan will be to use the house for families of clients to stay on the property as they participate in the clients’ recovery.

She noted that she and her mother had discussed her taking over the centre and it was always planned, but they believed they had more time. When she stepped into the position in 2016, Hoffman said it was a difficult transition for the staff. She wanted to focus more on recovery, along with after care services and programming.

“When I had approached my mother about renaming the centre and rebranding the centre, she was actually very supportive of that because she had laid this wonderful foundation for me and for us, really, to build on,” she said, recognizing the people involved in the transition did their best at the time. “Their focus had always been on addictions treatment and we really wanted to shift that to celebrating life in recovery.”

Hoffman said Prairie Sky Recovery utilized all of the same programs her mother had operated after she took over, but the centre has added on to those programs. New programs including a Family Care Enhancement Program focus on life after treatment and the celebration of recovery.

She noted that the centre rents space in Landis to use for the Family Care Enhancement Program, so she is really looking forward to the completion of renovations to the house near the centre to have all operations on the same property.

Hoffman, who lives with her family in Wilkie, said her mother had two programs, so she worked with the centre’s managing director, Johann DeWolfe, to develop the the new programs. The new programs combine old programming with new programming.

The centre has recovery programming. A Distance Learning Emotional Wellness Program is about to be launched in the fall of 2018, so the centre will offer online courses in addition to its residency programming, the CEO said.

She explained that the clients learn about themselves, so the Distance Learning Emotional Wellness Program is akin to self-help program. The centre also holds Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings each week. The meetings are open to clients and the public, so anyone could attend.

Hoffman said the centre’s location is nice because it is quiet, beautiful environment where clients could breath fresh air, eat, sleep and relax, but it also poses challenges for staff because the centre’s 18 employees have to travel to work.

Prairie Sky Recovery earned a Torch Award for Ethics from the Saskatchewan Better Business Bureau in 2018 and the award was presented to Hoffman in May. Hoffman said the centre has to focus on client confidentiality, so recognition is really special.

“It meant the world to us,” she said, adding that it enabled the centre to celebrate its staff. “As people wanting to help others who are struggling, I think that being recognized for upholding our ethical standards and our ethical business practices was really important for us.”

De Wolfe, the managing director, said the centre has historically treated about 100 to 125 clients per year, but that number was about 30 to 40 clients per year at the very start. She said clients often heard about the centre through word of mouth.

According to De Wolfe, who Hoffman hired when she took over, the CEO developed a plan for the future and it is her job to put the plan in action. She spent her first six months in the role helping to stabilize operations.

It was recognized that the centre is a member of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce and, for the first time ever, the centre is going to be surveyed by Accreditation Canada to secure certification as an addictions treatment and recovery operation. The core business is addressing addictions, but it is about healing.

“Healing happens here,” De Wolfe said. “That is probably one of the most incredible and most accurate statements because it doesn’t matter if it’s addictions. It doesn’t matter if it’s mental health issues. It doesn’t matter if it’s co-dependency. It doesn’t matter if it’s relationships. We do that whole huge spectrum, but at the end of the day the common denominator is people come in really unwell, and they leave healthier.”

She noted that the centre made a proposal to the Saskatchewan Government as part of a public-private partnership, but the proposal was not accepted. The centre proposed partnering with the government to provide services to clients in the public system in addition to private clients.

The centre is often at less than 50 per cent capacity, so there is room for more clients and a partnership would benefit both parties because it would help to fill the spaces and help the province to reduce its mental health and addictions wait list.

To celebrate 10 years of operation, Prairie Sky Recover Centre is hosting a two-day event titled Recovery Days in August. The event will be held on Aug. 24-25 and it will feature live music, speakers, campfire meetings and other fun.

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