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Nanaimo treatment centre offers additional care model

NANAIMO – Intensive Outpatient Program allows clients to participate in daily life while receiving treatment.

The Edgewood Health Network started offering its 12-week intensive outpatient program at its Nanaimo campus this fall.

The concept allows patients to participate in day-to-day life away from the treatment centre or clinic, while receiving in-depth treatment on their journey to recovery.

Edgewood, founded in 1994, provided its alumni with aftercare services in Nanaimo from the start. As the treatment centre began opening outpatient clinics across the country and in Seattle, the scope of services grew.  When the Edgewood Health Network was created two years ago, Toronto’s Bellwood Health Services joined the team, and clinics across the network began designing and offering services no longer exclusively for alumni.

The intensive outpatient program is private care. Some insurance plans cover some, or all, of the fees.

The concept of the intensive outpatient program, instead of full-on treatment, appeals to many. No staying over at Edgewood for two to five months or longer. No separation from family or friends or job. Many clinics around the world offer intensive outpatient programming, but most don’t have the experience of the Edgewood Health Network.

Brent Lloyd is the clinical manager of Edgewood Nanaimo’s Outpatient Clinic and oversees the program. With 14 years of addiction counseling under his belt, as well as being an Edgewood alumni himself with 19 years of recovery, Lloyd is thrilled to see Nanaimo open its doors to a new approach.

“It’s amazing. It’s hard to put in words,” said Lloyd. “Any way we can put a ding in the universe, that can help people, is a good thing. This is reaching people’s lives, not just kind of helping them. It’s motivating them.”

Nanaimo’s intensive outpatient program combines assessments, lectures, group therapy and various structured activities to help participants recognize their addictive behaviors while developing healthy coping strategies that lead to healthy living. The program includes many of the elements of Edgewood’s inpatient and extended care curriculums, such as educational videos and lectures about addiction, how it affects the brain and its impact on families. It includes nine hours of programming per week for the first six weeks, and seven hours a week for the second phase.

Random drug screening takes place in the two-phase program.

For more information, please contact Edgewood at 1-800-683-0111 or visit www.edgewood.ca.