Native Horizons Treatment Centre rises from the ashes
Clients seeking residential services were sent elsewhere for nearly five years
Residential services have returned to Native Horizons Treatment Centre following a devastating 2018 fire that levelled the addiction treatment facility on the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation near Hagersville.
While the centre secured temporary office space in Six Nations of the Grand River following the fire and delivered some group and virtual programs, clients seeking residential services were sent elsewhere for nearly five years, including Indigenous and non-Indigenous programs.
Executive director Wanda Smith said the newly rebuilt centre is ramping up to its full 15-resident capacity since reopening last September, hosting about 10 clients per six-week cycle.
Native Horizons offers an intensive residential treatment program designed to honour Indigenous traditions and values.
Smith noted the programs are trauma-informed with a holistic treatment approach; staff are also equipped to support clients with coexisting mental-health conditions.
Looking ahead, Smith said Native Horizons is looking to hire additional staff to cover some recent retirements and create a new landbased treatment program.
By the time the new facility opened last year, Smith said the centre had received more than 9,000 phone calls over the closure period, including parents and clients pleading for help.
“Some of the stories were heartwrenching,” Smith recalled. “I left here many times in tears because of those calls.”
In November 2019, the centre submitted a $5.3-million proposal to the federal government to rebuild the treatment centre, along with a multipurpose room for recreational activities.
Funding was approved in 2021, but by then the cost to rebuild the treatment centre alone had ballooned to $6.9 million.
Insurance money covered the shortfall and Health Canada chipped in $850,000 to furnish the building, but nothing was left for the multipurpose room, which remains on the centre’s wish list today.
Smith said Native Horizons isn’t like a typical 12-step addiction program.
Rather than focusing on cognitive processes and methodologies, Smith noted Native Horizons encourages clients to process traumatic moments — called lifelines — helping them to reconnect with their inner child.
“Because of all of the issues of colonization and intergenerational trauma, our program is geared at looking at the underlying causes for substance use,” said Smith. “There isn’t one native person who hasn’t been affected by the genocide that we’ve experienced — and so, we all carry a lot of trauma.”
Native Horizons is known for its teddy bear rooms, where clients explore their lifelines and express their emotions in a safe space.
Smith noted the teddy bears help clients reconnect with their younger selves, giving them the opportunity to connect with feelings and emotions they couldn’t express as children.
“Part of our understanding is that all of those little traumas are why we use,” said Smith. “Because the feelings come up, we don’t know what to do with them, so we use to keep those feelings suppressed.”
Native Horizons encourages clients to express those feelings, to deal with them and let them go.
Staff take part in the same healing exercises to confront their own traumas, Smith noted.
Examples include morning prayer, smudging, talking circles, drumming and singing, arts and crafts, sweat lodge ceremonies and visits by elders and traditional knowledge keepers.
Native Horizons accepts clients on a six-week intake in three components. The first two weeks focus on orientation and connection with staff and other clients, with no contact in or out.
In weeks three and four, clients explore their lifelines and feelings of anger or sadness arising from their childhood. Smith noted the discussion can lead to disclosure of abuse.
“Undoubtedly there’s a lot of tears, there’s some anger,” said Smith. “And we encourage them that whatever comes up for you, just let yourself feel it because your body hangs on to everything that happens to you.”
Smith said clients prepare to return home in weeks five and six, with relapse planning and supports like employment counselling.
While the 2018 fire was a major setback for Native Horizons, Smith said staff and clients were fortunate the facility was empty when the blaze broke out around 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 13. Normally, clients would have been discharged the following day, a Friday. But with the holiday season approaching clients were gone by 1 p.m. Thursday afternoon, with a board meeting slated for the next day.
“I really believe that we were being looked after because if we had kept clients one more night, they would have just had another layer of trauma to deal with before going home and before Christmas,” said Smith.
While media reports at the time urged anyone who may have noticed suspicious persons or vehicles to contact police, Smith said the cause of the fire was believed to be an electrical issue in the boardroom.
Native Horizons Treatment Centre is planning a grand reopening celebration at 130 New Credit Rd. on April 17 at 1 p.m. The event will include speeches and acknowledgments, drumming and traditional tobacco burning, plus a pig roast.