women

Non-profit Sophia Recovery Centre has broken ground on an expansion project to better support women in crisis.

The centre, which serves women facing substance use challenges, marked the milestone Wednesday while also announcing more than $391,000 in provincial and federal funding for the project.

Executive director Julie Atkinson said the 1,800-square-foot expansion to its Metcalf facility will help the centre provide long-term, community-based support that women battling substance abuse and other challenges need to heal.

“Women are presenting with fairly complex needs, and sometimes they need different kinds of supports,” she said. “The goal here is not necessarily to grow the number of clients that we are supporting as much as it is to be able to do a better job at meeting all the needs of women that need the support.”

Atkinson explained that their programming is limited as they only have one program room that is mainly used by their intensive group program, which is a six-week outpatient therapy group designed for women in recovery from addiction.

The group meets three times a week, which Atkinson said severely limits their ability to run other concurrent activities such as one-on-one appointments, their child assistance program, and journaling workshops.

Atkinson said the expansion will allow multiple programs to run simultaneously, helping the centre provide better support for women’s unique challenges, while creating space for other organizations to provide additional support resources to their clients.

Atkinson believes is important to create these spaces, as she said recovery doesn’t end after completing a rehabilitation program.

“The support needs to continue, and it needs to be matched to their unique needs,” she said. “For some women, support with working their way through a complex justice system is essential to them staying well, and for other women, maybe they just need support with counselling. . .maybe one-on-one peer coaching is appropriate for them.”

“Those are the things that when we add those supports that build the skills and the resilience of that woman so that she is well and she doesn’t need those supports.”

However, Atkinson said those are often the aspects that are missing in our system.

“We tend to focus on the acute care setting, and we don’t look at the ongoing care, the continuing care that is actually critical for women to be successful in being well,” she explained.

So far, the organization has fundraised around $750,000 to build the expansion.

Atkinson said they still need $100,000 to cover all the construction costs.

She said the non-profit aims to raise those remaining funds by Christmas to prevent any opening delays.

Construction is scheduled to finish in March, and Atkinson they plan to use the facility as soon as it’s completed.