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E-waste Collection

Hello friends and neighbours,

Recovery Acres is collecting household and office electronics for the Electronics Recycling Association for the month of April. The ERA in turn then supplies Recovery Acres with free refurbished desktops and below cost laptops. It’s the circle of life and a great example of nonprofits working together with community participation from our neighbours mixed in  as a bonus!

If you have trouble reading the poster, the items that they are collecting are:

  • Consumer electronics: gaming consoles, iPods etc.
  • Desktop computers: PCs, Macs, monitors, parts. Motherboards etc.
  • Handheld devices: smart phones. Cell phones tablets
  • Laptops and printers
  • Peripherals: keyboards, mice etc.
  • Phone systems, servers and networking systems etc.

NOTE: They do NOT take household appliances

Thanks in advance for participating!

You can drop those items off anytime, we are staffed 24/7. For your health and safety and that of our clients I would ask that you call the office when you are here and staff will come out to you to grab the items from your car or you can leave the items on the step and wait for staff to come out and grab them from there.

Address 6329 – 118th Ave (parking in alley on south side of building and on 64th street to the west)

Office phone: 780-471-2996

Recovery Acres staff will have appropriate PPE, but please allow them to maintain 6 feet of physical distance when they come outside to grab your e-waste items.

Happy Holidays

Wishing everyone a safe and sober holiday season from all of us at Recovery Acres.

The holidays can be a special time of year, but they can also be a stressful time of year and they are often associated with behaviours that don’t go hand-in-hand with early recovery.

Here are some links to sites that have advice on and tips on getting through the season and making it into the New Tear with style and grace:

  1. https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/articles/tips-for-enjoying-sober-holidays
  2. https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/how-stay-sober-over-holidays-tips-from-people-recovery/
  3. https://www.sobriety.ca/addiction-and-holidays.htm
  4. https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/5-things-remember-sobriety-holidays/
  5. https://www.smartrecovery.org/5-tips-to-enjoy-a-sober-holiday-season/

Here at Recovery Acres, the best tool we’ve found for our client over the holidays is making a DETAILED daily schedule. Print out a December calendar or get a blank sheet of paper and make a little calendar for the holiday period you are concerned with. Split each day into “Morning”, “Afternoon” and “Evening” and make sure that you have some sort of activity for each time slot, each day over the holidays. For example, Day 1: Morning: walk dog with sister then go shopping with Mom; Afternoon: meet John for lunch and then go see matinee; Evening: dinner with family, 84th street AA meeting.

If you have activities or something scheduled morning, afternoon and evening for each day over the holidays, and none of the things that you have scheduled involve using drugs or alcohol or committing crimes etc. and you stick to you schedule then you will arrive safe and sound in 202 without a hitch. Simple (but not always easy).

Have a great holiday season and a wonderful New Year’s!

Jeremiah, Executive Director

 

New Procedure for Corrections Transitions

Programing update: Recovery Acres is no longer taking clients directly into our treatment program from corrections; all clients coming into the program MUST be coming in from the community first. Blow is further details on this new policy:

Recovery Acres Corrections Intake Protocol – 2020

Recovery Acres will no longer take clients directly out of corrections. They must be in the community before they come here as clients, even if it is just for a few days.

Procedure for new corrections clients:

1) Clients wanting to do residential treatment after they are released from corrections can fill out applications and submit them while incarcerated.

2) Once we have their application we can do interviews to assess treatment readiness and appropriateness.

3) If the client is both ready for treatment and an appropriate fit for our program, then we can do two things:

  • Write a letter stating that the client has submitted an application, we have interviewed the client and found them to be treatment ready and a good fit for our program and that the client will be put on our wait list once they are released into the community.
  • We can help them with a safe plan for accommodation when they are released so they can navigate our wait list in the community safely (e.g. passing along an applications and phone number for Harmony House).

 

4) Make sure they understand they will be moved to our wait list AFTER they are released and that we will NOT be giving them, their lawyer or the crown an intake date while they are incarcerated.

5) Finally, remind them that it is their responsibility to keep in contact with us once a week until they are released and then to contact us immediately when they are released into the community so we can move them onto the community wait list.

6) After they are released, make sure they know to call us in order to be moved to the community wait list, and then everything is the same as for any other client seeking admission.

We have very good relationships with community partners who are helping our corrections clients with short-term housing and transitioning out of corrections until they have a bed at Recovery Acres and this new system has been working well, so please do not let your corrections clients feel discouraged. Again, encourage them to fill out an application and call us.

Bed update

Here is a breakdown of our wait times and availability for all of our programs:

Summary:

Name: Program: Wait time:
Recovery Acres Residential Addiction Treatment (90 day program) One week or less (provided they have 5 days clean and are treatment ready).
Robson Houses (men’s) Supportive Transitional Housing (6 months – 2 year) One bed available.
 

Women’s Supportive housing

 

Supportive Transitional Housing (6 month ??? 2 year)

 

Five beds available January 1st, 2020.

Call us at 780-471-2996 for more information.

Thanks in advance everyone; have a good day,

Jeremiah

Supportive Housing for women!

I will have more details in our Christmas newsletter, but I can say with confidence now that for the first time EVER Recovery Acres will be working with female clients as of January 1st, 2020!

 

This is exciting news for us and I hope it is exciting for our community partners as well. We will have five supportive housing beds available for women leaving treatment programs who would like to continue their aftercare in a safe, sober and supportive environment. More details and application forms will be available soon but for now anyone interested in more information can call or email myself or Beth (780-471-2996, jeremiah@recoveryacres.ca beth@recoveryacres.ca).

Ancients and Elders

Recently Recovery Acres took all of the residents to a performace of Ancetors and Elders. The following is  review of that experince by Jordan B.:

I had a really wonderful experience at the Jubilee watching Ancients and Elders. I really enjoyed watching the performance of two nations setting their differences aside and learning to coexist together.

During the performance I was amazed by the skill and technique of both the Ukrainian and the First Nations people in their dancing and costumes. What really jumped out at me, so to speak, was the messages being pointed out and presented.

The first one was about all of the hard work, labor, sacrifice required back then and I think the hopeful spirit of a better future the people had. When the harsh winter was coming and people were starving and getting sick and needed medicine there was a scene of the two women helping each other; it was very moving I think for everybody. Survival and a harsh winter climate, setting aside and laying down differences, coming together and being a part of each other’s lives… it was fascinating and moving.

Another powerful part was the scene with the First Nations school children and on stage the beliefs and culture and very fabric of their way of life was being stripped away. For me, that was the hardest scene to watch as that is a very sensitive issue. I have a special respect for our First Nations people, and have had many great friends from First Nations communities so I guess that whole scene was unsettling and very sad as well.

Overall Ancestors and Elders was great and it delivered a powerful message that we can coexist and live together as human beings and not just like animals killing each other just because we’re a little bit “different”.