Hope Valley offers a fresh start the for those with addictions

Hope Valley Healing Centre near Cameron opened last August, and CEO Jason Hillier said he’s very proud of what the treatment centre has been able to accomplish in 10 months.

During this time more than 80 people have gone through treatment, and 71 are still in contact with Hillier and the team.

Hillier himself had been an addict for 21 years and was in and out of treatment centres. “I’m the product of five treatment centers, and I always thought to myself, looking back, had I been given different learning opportunities while I was in treatment, maybe I only needed to go once,” he said.

Hope Valley uses both evidence-based models and holistic healing. “We were trying to build a model through a grassroots movement to put people through treatment, because the OHIP side of treatment was unfortunately seeing people dying, and their names are on wait lists,” said Hillier.

The building itself looks like a house, and outside are ponds and trails. It’s not what a traditional treatment centre looks like. For Hillier, having a welcoming space is the first step to offering successful treatment. “How do I get vulnerable and start looking at the underlying causes and conditions, and dealing with trauma, and dealing with all this stuff if I don’t feel safe, if I’m still stuck in fight or flight mode?”

The centre offers a variety of services and works to make individual plans for everyone who walks through the doors. Hope Valley offers acupuncture; 24-hour clinical care; addiction doctors; psychiatry; peer-support workers; narcotics anonymous on Wednesday nights; and alcoholics anonymous on Mondays.

They receive no government funding, but half of their beds are free. “Our fee for service beds actually subsidizes what’s called compassion care beds. This is just a model that the people who can pay help pay for the people who can’t.”

Hillier said the hardest part for anyone who takes the step to seek treatment is to walk through the door and ask for help. By offering various services, it makes it easier for someone to go to an alcoholics anonymous meeting instead of having to find the meeting out in the community.

When designing the centre, Hillier went through every rule he had ever been given at a treatment centre and made sure not to include the ones that didn’t have any proven benefits. For example, there is a communal kitchen that anyone staying at Hope Valley has access to, and they can have any foods stocked up in the kitchen that they want.

Visits with family members, including pets, happen every week. Eventually, Hillier can see a change in these visits. “There are no words to describe watching the light come on in someone’s eyes, and watching a little boy run into his father’s arms, or watching a husband and wife look at each other differently for the first time in 20 years.”

Hillier also puts an emphasis on the language used. Those going through treatment aren’t called clients, they’re guests. Many of those staying at the centre are human trafficking survivors, and Hillier points out how damaging it could be to call them a client. “We really pride ourselves on being a loving, compassionate centre.”

After someone completes their treatment, a graduation ceremony is put on where the person leaving puts their thumbprint on a painting of a tree.

“The reason we do that is a lot of times the aftercare programming in a lot of treatment facilities is not the greatest,” said Hillier. The thumbprint symbolizes that those leaving will always have Hope Valley as a home and are welcome back.

In his role Hillier is trying to help educate the public on what addiction really is. To many, outwardly it appears that alcohol consumption or drug usage is the problem, however, for addicts Hillier said the problem is how they feel without using drugs or alcohol.

While he doesn’t promise to know all the solutions, Hillier is proud of what Hope Valley has been able to offer to those who need it. “We are not about putting a cast on a broken arm. We want to teach the individual how to learn to stop falling out of that tree.”

Hillier said that currently Hope Valley is looking into finalising plans for expansion that would see the organization move more into the community for outreach work.