By Matthew Liebenberg
Southwest Booster
A community’s long-held dream to provide a safe space for youth in need became a reality when the Dorie’s House Treatment Centre opened five years ago in Swift Current.
A celebration of this important milestone took place on Sept. 11 with a fifth anniversary come-and-go barbecue in the backyard of Dorie’s House.
The anniversary was also marked with a City of Swift Current proclamation of Sept. 4-11 as Dorie’s Days.
The celebration was an opportunity to connect with the community and create awareness about the facility’s impact.
“We want others to know that our services are available and they’re still needed,” Dorie’s House Outreach Coordinator Meghan Hanna said. “There are still lots of kids out there who need some help. They’re struggling with their mental health, they’re struggling maybe with addictions or they’re just in an unsafe living situation. We’re a safe place to land, but we want to help them set up safe ways to be OK when they’re out.”
Outreach programming is an important part of the activities at Dorie’s House. It varies from sponsoring free public swims in different communities in southwest Saskatchewan to hosting art workshops.
The involvement of youth from Dorie’s House with these outreach activities makes it possible for them to connect with the community while helping out.
“They get a chance to do some good things in the community and pay it forward,” she said. “The kids get lonely, especially if they’re in here and they don’t see their friends. This way they can get at events with other people as well and connect in healthy and positive ways.”
Youth from Dorie’s House were involved with several activities during the Dorie’s Days week. They helped to make the community cleaner by picking up garbage in a park and they volunteered at the local animal shelter. Care packages were distributed to people working in caring roles. These packages were made a while ago by staff and youth staying in the facility at the time.
The Dorie’s House Treatment Centre became a reality in September 2021 as a result of an agreement between the Southwest Youth Emergency Shelter Inc. (SWYES) and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA).
This made it possible for the Dorie’s House facility to open on a permanent basis to provide support services for youth 12 to 18 years old.
It offers a six-bed treatment program for youth struggling with substance misuse as well as two beds to provide emergency housing support for youth who require shelter during times of crisis or transition.
“The treatment beds come through a referral process, but the emergency beds might just be a self-referral,” Hanna said. “It could be a family member saying ‘I’m worried about this child’ or a teacher saying they’re worried. They can come through different ways. We have information on our website on how to get hold of us if someone’s needing a place to stay.”
Dorie’s House Case Manager Paula Sundquist noted that support can be offered until a person’s 19th birthday. The presence of youth workers ensures that on-site support is available 24/7. The treatment program runs for six weeks with access to specialized support.
“And once they’re done, they don’t have to leave,” she noted. “There is a lot of youth that need a few extra days to find another place to go, because a lot of times they’re not returning home until they have a little bit more help. So we’ll try to connect them with their community and resources in their community and find them a safe place to live.”
Dorie’s House works closely with other agencies in the community to ensure that the needs of youth are addressed. The demand for the services provided at Dorie’s House will fluctuate during the year.
“It’s peaks and valleys,” she said. “Over the summer, kids that are homeless can couch surf. They’ll stay with one friend for a while and then another. When school starts and the weather starts becoming a lot worse, we see more of our emergency beds fill up, but for treatment it’s kind of peaks and valleys. We will be full and then all of a sudden everybody will graduate and then we will only have a couple people in the house, and then all of a sudden within a month or so we’re full again.”
Sundquist feels the operation of the facility over the past five years clearly highlighted its importance.
“We’ve been pretty lucky, our community has always backed us up, but if we didn’t have Dorie’s House, where would those kids go,” she asked. “We need more places like Dorie’s House. I wish we could cookie cutter this and put a Dorie’s House in every community.”
Dorie’s House Interim Executive Director Kevin Hanna, who previously served on the board of directors for several years, has been working with youth for 45 years. He can recall the efforts in the community since the 1980s to create an emergency shelter for youth.
“We fought for years, but proposal after proposal got turned down,” he said. “Now to see it open and filling it with kids, it’s pretty special.”
The construction of the building in 2016 was an important step. The work was coordinated by Tom and Charmaine Westbury. The facility is named after their mother Dorie in recognition of her love for children. The project was a community build that involved donations of expertise, labour and materials from local contractors and businesses.
Funding continued to be an issue after the completion of construction, but the partnership with SHA made it possible to open the doors on a permanent basis.
“SHA has been a fantastic partner,” Hanna said. “It’s just helping those kids to be safe from whatever is going on for them.”
Tom Westbury continues to be involved as a volunteer and he takes care of the building’s maintenance.
“I always said if we could save just one kid, it would be worth it,” he mentioned. “And I get the chance to witness saving quite a few kids. So, it’s been well worth it. It means a lot to me and to have my mom’s name on here means even more.”
