New women’s centre staff eager to help

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This article was published 02/12/2011 (5216 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After a long but successful battle with drug addiction, former runaway Isabelle Duff feels like she has finally found a home.

As a life skills coach, Duff says she’s looking forward to helping other women at the new Teen Challenge Women’s Centre.

“I’ve always wanted to do something for God, and it’s just I could never find my place … and then I walked through the door and it was like I’m home,” Duff said Thursday as Teen Challenge hosted a media tour at the facility.

Teen Challenge is a Christian-based, one-year residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for people aged 18 years and older. Those who need help can apply to the program, but they can also be referred. That includes referrals through the justice system.

Teen Challenge’s 3,300-square-foot provincial heritage farm home, which stands on 4.5 acres west of Brandon, has housed a rehab centre for men for the last four years, but now it’s being converted to serve women exclusively.

Centre director Ann French says female addicts differ from male addicts, so treatment differs in some ways.

Women tend to internalize their feelings more and experience shame and guilt, French said.

When the centre welcomes its first female students in January, it will be the first such facility in the Prairies for Teen Challenge and one of three that it runs in Canada. The others are in Aurora, Ont., and Abbotsford, B.C.

Manitoba women will now have a Teen Challenge centre within their own province, closer to their families. Men who would have attended the Brandon centre will now be referred to Winnipeg for treatment.

Executive director Steven Paulson said those who take the Teen Challenge program have an 80 per cent success rate at remaining clean, sober and out of trouble for up to five years after they graduate.

Part of the program’s success lies in the mutual support among students who live, work and learn together.

“You find family, and then you have hope and purpose for a future,” Paulson said.

Teen Challenge’s goal is to help students as it has helped Duff — to escape a lifestyle in which women are abused, jailed and even killed.

Duff, who’s originally from The Pas, was adopted when she was eight years old. At the age of 15, she ran away to Calgary and then Vancouver. Struggling to live on her own, she fell into a life of drugs and prostitution and developed a crack cocaine addiction that lasted 17 years.

The awareness that her life wasn’t what she wanted came when she had her first son at the age of 24.

“It just really tormented me inside that I wasn’t being the mom that I really wanted to be,” Duff said.

But her battle with drugs continued. Duff had another son and a daughter and, due to her addiction, all three of her children were raised by their grandparents. She tried a number of 30-day residential treatment programs but they didn’t help.

Finally, after she ran afoul of the law, a judge gave Duff a choice — take programming or go to jail. Duff chose Teen Challenge, which she’d heard about through a family services worker.

She was impressed with the faith and persistence of the Teen Challenge teachers. And, while there were setbacks and Duff ran away from the program a number of times, her teachers would somehow find her and welcome her back.

On the fourth try, she completed the program. She then became a mentor for the program in Aurora and will now be a life skills coach at the Brandon centre.

Now 49 and free of drugs, she hopes other women who take the program will look at her and realize they can improve their lives too.

The Brandon centre will house eight students and three staff, and Duff is eager for the new students to arrive.

“I’m so excited, I just can’t wait for the first girl to walk in here,” Duff said.

» ihitchen@brandonsun.com