After all the planning and fundraising for Portage Atlantic’s Lewis Fitness Centre project, construction is now well underway and Portage staff members and youth have been reveling in the anticipation of watching the day-to-day progress of the construction site. On January 17, Dave Emmerson, Chair of the Lewis Fitness Centre Capital Campaign, met with the… Read more »
All of the potential stresses of adolescence that may contribute to substance abuse can be compounded by a struggle with sexual identity. In order to better respond to the needs of clients who identify themselves as transgender, Portage Atlantic has put a pilot project in place at its residential drug addiction rehabilitation centre At Portage,… Read more »
Josh, a Portage graduate, gave a powerful speech earlier in October, during the 2016 Portage Atlantic Recognition Ceremony, at Cassidy Lake. Watch Josh’s speech here
Young women today are subject to increasing pressure from aggressive marketing, the prevalence of social media, and the feminine ideals portrayed in the media. To deal with this pressure, some turn to drugs or other risky behaviour. In order to respond to this new reality for young women, a group of Portage staff members recently… Read more »
As Portage’s drug rehabilitation treatment approach has evolved over the years, there has been an increasing focus on clients’ unique attributes and individual needs, enabling the client to set the priorities for his own recovery. Taking the concept further, Portage’s Workbook is the most recent adaptation of the treatment approach, currently being piloted at Portage’s… Read more »
Fifteen years of Sobriety and counting. If you’re reading this and are thinking about getting help: Go get it NOW! I promise you, the sober life gets better with time. It’s hard to imagine now, but it is the truth.It was hard at the beginning. Leaving Portage Atlantic after an eight-month program, I was back… Read more »
All Portage centres for adolescents offer mandatory on-site high school programming recognised by local school boards and adapted to the needs of the residents. Though some residents have been good students in the past, many of them have struggled with school, largely because they could not keep the pace that a teacher in a large… Read more »
The time a person spends at Portage can best be described as a time of self-discovery. In the supportive and nurturing environment of the Portage community, our clients encounter, sometimes for the first time, their emergent self. This is not so much about treatment as it is about freeing the beautiful person within, to face… Read more »
One person’s addiction affects many more than that one person. Parents often feel helpless and guilty in the face of a child’s addiction, and loved ones often want desperately to help, but don’t know how. At Portage, we recognise that a healthy family support network is the bedrock of an individual’s recovery from addiction, which… Read more »
One out of eight adolescents has admitted to using prescription medication Many youth mistakenly believe that prescription drugs are safer than illegal drugs, since they have been approved for consumption. They don’t necessarily understand that taking medication for non-medical reasons carries severe risks: intoxication, dependency, overdose, and death. to get high, and 70% of them… Read more »
