Pubdate: Fri, 25 Nov 2011 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2011 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Pauline Tam WORK BEGINS ON $1.3M DRUG-TREATMENT FACILITY FOR FRANCOPHONE TEENS Construction has begun on a $1.3-million residential drug-treatment centre for French-speaking teens. The Maison Fraternite is part of a long-awaited expansion of addiction treatment services for youth that builds on existing day programs, school-based prevention programs and a burgeoning residential treatment program for English-speaking teens. The five-bed facility on Olmstead Street in Vanier is aimed at francophones aged 12 to 17. It is expected to accept its first clients by May. Meanwhile, work is also under way to bring three existing drug treatment programs for anglo-phone teens under one roof. Currently, the Dave Smith Youth Treatment Centre spends $3.3 million a year to run programs out of locations in Carleton Place, West Carleton and Ottawa, creating "oeall sorts of drains on resources," said Glenn Barnes, the centre's executive director. By July 2014, the centre aims to consolidate all of its operations at the West Carleton site on 137 acres on Bradley Side Road. As part of the consolidation, the centre's residential treatment program would be expanded to 30 beds from the existing 24. The centre is working with the United Way to raise $2.5 million to build a bigger facility in West Carleton. Since 2010, when the Dave Smith centre was first created out of two amalgamated organizations, the residential program has treated 198 youths, with another 29 teens waiting to be admitted. In the Ottawa area, 385 young people between the ages of 13 and 21 have complex addictions and mental illnesses that require residential treatment, Barnes estimated. In recent years, the demand for addictions treatment has been fuelled by a sharp rise in the recreational use of prescription painkillers among this region's teens. A recent survey showed one in five Eastern Ontario high school students has taken highly addictive painkillers such as Oxycontin, Percocet and Demerol. Only alcohol and marijuana are more popular, according to the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, the country's longest ongoing study of teen habits. Among Eastern Ontario's 308,000 students between grades 7 and 12, nearly 65,000, or 21 per cent, admitted having taken a prescription painkiller at least once in 2009, the last time the survey was conducted. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart