Nunavik addictions centre moves closer to expansion

This artist’s rendering shows plans for the future Isuarsivik Regional Recovery Centre, set to be built along Nuvuuk Bay in Kuujjuaq by 2020.

KUUJJUAQ—The group behind a project to rebuild an expanded addictions treatment centre in Kuujjuaq says it now has accreditation and a secured building site in Nunavik’s largest community.

The Isuarsivik centre in Kuujjuaq currently offers a six-week treatment cycle for up to nine clients in a 70-year-old building.

But its board of directors is working on plans to build a new, expanded centre that could accommodate 20 clients at a time, plus a daycare and extra units for families.

The group hopes to open the new $32-million Isuarsivik Regional Recovery Centre in 2020.

“We’re right where we should be,” said Dave Forrest, chair of Isuarsivik’s board. “It’s looking really good.”

In May, the centre earned its accreditation primer through Accreditation Canada, the first step in a full assessment that will take place in May 2019.

The treatment centre was also granted its lot request for a piece of land north of Nuvuuk Bay along the Koksoak river—a location just on the outskirts of the town of 2,400.

The new Isuarsivik centre hopes to employ 42 staff members, including an on-site psychologist, nurse and family therapists.

Forrest said the centre has secured about 80 per cent of the operating funds it will need to launch in 2020 through the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services.

To help raise funds to cover other costs, the board plans to launch the Nunavik Recovery Foundation, a charitable organization to draw private and corporate contributions to the project.

Isuarsivik has opted for a “family approach” to its new centre, by welcoming pregnant women and families, Forrest said.

The centre will make more of an effort to prevent child placement under the Youth Protection Act, to prevent fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and to address the impact parental substance abuse has on children.

“We want this to be about empowering Inuit,” Forrest said. “The whole region has been very supportive.”

Isuarsivik recently parted with its long-time clinical supervisor Grayling Malaterre and executive director Mae Saunders.

The board has since hired Geneviève Dorval as its interim executive director and Diane Bellec as the centre’s new clinical supervisor.

Visit Isuarsivik’s new website here.