[Begin Excerpt]

“I have a crack cocaine problem,” said Jennette. “I started using when I was 11 or 12.” That was 20 years ago; along the way she hit bottom, crawled up, had kids, fell back down, and lost her family.

But Jennette has not used drugs for a couple of years now. She got clean with strength she didn’t know she had, and also with the help of the Canterbury Clinic.

You have walked past this place often enough but, because you have never seen a sign on the door, and because you have never been an addict, you did not know it was there.

But unless there is a miracle, the clinic will close in a few weeks.

It was founded 15 years ago by Michael McCrimmon and two colleagues; they wanted to treat people who use drugs or alcohol but who don’t fit the usual treatment models: people who have mental health problems, who have lost their kids, who have trouble with the law, who can’t find help elsewhere.

For the past several years, the clinic has had the financial support of an angel, Generex Biotechnology, a small drug research company.

But Generex yanked its support 10 days ago, without a word of warning or a period of grace. A spokesman for the company confirmed that over the phone the other day.

McCrimmon said, “We lost $150,000.” That’s about three-quarters of his budget. How did he find out he was cut off? “Our April cheque was late. I called. I was told they were going in another direction.”

The loss is devastating.

McCrimmon said, “I can last six weeks, but unless I find some money, I’ll have to close the doors. I need —” and here, he paused and grasped at an imaginary straw — “10 people with $12,000 each to buy me a year to find alternative funding.”

How many people will be affected if he closes? “We treat 200 or 300 people a year; it’s open-ended treatment, not eight weeks and out you go. We get referrals from detox centres, from doctors, from courts, from other programs. Half our work is with women who have kids.”

What makes the clinic a success? “The patient doesn’t have to fit our treatment; here, the treatment has to fit the patient.”

[End Excerpt]

For the rest of the story read here …

http://www.thestar.com/article/974999–fiorito-fifteen-years-of-miracles-at-clinic-for-addicts-may-end

Source: Toronto Star

[Excerpt]

Theresa Schrader roamed the streets of the Lakeshore for 10 years as a crack-addicted prostitute.

Heart wrenching life losses conspired to find her there.

At just 13, she lost her father. She was hospitalized for mental illness. She left her Nova Scotia home at 18, her strained relationship with her mother broken down.

She found people who wanted to take care of her. They were all using drugs. She joined them.

“I was just a slave,” Schrader, 35, said of her crack addiction.

A desperate bid to escape crack drove her to Toronto. She lived at Covenant House, then found her own place to live. She had a child. Toronto Children’s Aid Society took her son at nine months old. After a year-long battle to regain custody, CAS took him permanently.

“I hit the Lakeshore like none other. Once I had to say goodbye to my son, I hit the crack pipe like no tomorrow,” Schrader said.

Schrader had a second child. She lost that child to CAS, too.

Today, she has a four-year-old son named Markus.

“It was the pregnancy with Markus that ended it all on the Lakeshore,” she said. “I had CAS facing me. I had support systems facing me. Everyone said, ‘You’re going to lose this child again.’ I started to process that, and when I did, I saw myself dead. I thought, ‘If I have to go through this one more time, I’m going to kill myself, rip off some dealer or do somebody wrong’ and I saw myself dead.

“It scared the sh** out of me. I went and got clean. I haven’t looked back.”

That was five years ago.

Tonight, Schrader is being honoured with the Jean Augustine Scholarship. The $1,000 scholarship is awarded annually to a single mother in need who is currently attending or registered to attend George Brown College.

[End Excerpt]

Source: Inside Toronto

Read more …

http://www.insidetoronto.com/community/life/article/971059–healed-life-after-prostitution-crack-addiction

[Excerpt]

Sometimes life takes unexpected turns. Just ask Naheria Cummings and Alisha Keck, two single mothers who never envisioned they would be where they are now at 22 and 23. The alternative school students work hard to take care of their children, finish up their high school equivalency and somehow make ends meet.

Despite their difficult situations, they find joy and a sense of meaning through one Nanaimo program that gives them a weekly chance to forget about their problems and just be themselves.

Life Works is a Nanaimo Family Life youth program that has only been around since last spring, but has made a difference in the young mothers’ lives. The government initiative, a drug prevention strategy funded by Health Canada, opens its doors to young students in Nanaimo as a way to offer support and help build resilience in vulnerable youth.

Life Works is just one of the local groups participating today in a conference on youth addiction. A community forum and keynote address will highlight how the community can help prevent and protect youth from substance-use issues in Nanaimo. There will also be workshops on youth residential housing and some of the local services available to vulnerable youth and their families.

Community connections are pivotal when it comes to substance use, says Nanaimo Addiction Foundation executive director Geri Sera. Some of the specific issues youth face in Nanaimo include poverty, the limits of educational support systems, a lack of youth employment opportunity and bullying or peer abuse at school.

“Parents and foster parents have to learn that some kids are not going to be improved just by love,” says Sera.

“Some things need more than love to help them be remedied.”

[End of Excerpt]

For the rest of the story …

http://www.canada.com/community+program+gives+young+moms+lifeline/4330049/story.html