Ministry o ers hope for a life beyond addiction

Matt Preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca

A Grande Prairie organization is branching out into Fort St. John to establish a six-month residential recovery program for people struggling with addictions.

Rising Above Ministries met with elected officials, faith leaders, frontline responders, and First Nation representatives last week about their plans to establish a program in the city.

“The fact that right now people have to go to Prince George or Grande Prairie for treatment… that’s a long ways away,” said executive director Mel Siggelkow, a pastor who started Rising Above in 2007 serving three people in a suite above the Church of the Nazarene in downtown Grande Prairie.

Today, the nonprofit charity has grown to 51 beds, with four residential treatment houses and one second-stage housing apartment to help men and women recover from addictions, homelessness, and criminal behaviour.

Siggelkow hopes to replicate that success in Fort St. John, first by opening six beds for women in the centre formerly operated by New Day in the Peace Ministries near the airport. In doing so, New Day will disbanding and reorganizing under the Rising Above banner, adopting its values and program model as an autonomous locallyrun chapter, Siggelkow said.

The search is on for a director, and Siggelkow hopes the women’s program will be up and running as soon as this summer, with a men’s program hopefully within a year. The organization will be hosting a number of community events in the coming months as it looks to build momentum raising awareness and fundraising capacity prior to opening.

“It’s going to make a huge difference in the community in the city to know that there’s help right here locally that they can access tomorrow,” Siggelkow said, “and fill a gap that’s been here for far too long.”

As a faith-based organization, Rising Above takes a pastoral approach to counselling rather than a clinical one. Residents will have to be detoxed and clean for at least seven days before being accepted into the program.

From there, they’re required to take 30 hours a week of programming built around housing, employment readiness, life skills, personal development, and spiritual formation — or HELPS for short.

“When you’re in that place of an addiction, when you’re ready to put your hand up and say, I need help, you’ve lost hope,” Siggelkow said. “So to have somebody say that, hey, we can help, we can put hope back into your life, that’s what people want and need.”

“We can say there’s hope, you’re not done. It’s not over for you yet, there’s life beyond your addiction,” he said. “Just come on in, and let us help you do that.”

All faiths would be welcome, Siggelkow said, noting most of the people being helped in Grande Prairie have no faith background at all. About 40% of those being supported are indigenous, and the organization has a long waiting list. Of the 417 applications it received last year, it could only admit 102 people.

Internal programming is often augmented with community supports such as clinical addictions counselling and other partner agencies for mental health and employment supports as well as cultural services, which Siggelkow says are also key to recovery.

“We just help facilitate that and help them navigate it. We don’t do it for them,” he said. “That’s one of our value statements, we don’t do for them what they’re capable of doing for themselves.”

Siggelkow wants to work with local groups including the Salvation Army on men’s housing and life skills classes, and the Grace House operated by the Pentecostals of Fort St. John as a secondstage housing partner for women completing the Rising Above program.

“We need to co-operate and work together,” he said. “Why try to duplicate something that you’ve already got a really good feel for? Let’s work with them. not try to work different from them.”

Money raised in Fort St. John for Rising Above in Fort St. John will stay in Fort St. John, Siggelkow said. The organization will have its own governance board and operate independently from Grande Prairie, he said.

“When local people invest in it, it’s theirs, and so there’s going to be local ownership in it,” he said. “People who benefit from it are going to end up financially supporting it, people financially supporting it are going to be referring people to it, because they feel like they own it, so it gives it that community feel.”

“I’ve been around Fort St. John long enough to know that it’s a community like Grande Prairie,” he said. “People are going to be very generous, and when the vision is shared, they’re going to say, I’ll help. Get the right director and team in place and the funding will be there.”

Search and rescue exercises held

Matt Preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca

The Royal Canadian Air Force and a crew of air search rescuers from the Yukon touched down in Fort St. John last week for an afternoon of training manoeuvres in the area.

Members of the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association in Whitehorse were on board a CC-130H Hercules Feb. 8 doing some practice parachute drops of equipment and personnel, says Capt. Brad Little of 19 Wing Public Affairs.

“The idea there, of course, is to train those folks, bring them aboard the aircraft. You never know where a real search and rescue will be,” he said. “They visit these small places and train with these folks so when an incident goes they will have the skills to assist.”

The Hercules was from the Air Force’s Transport and Rescue 435 Squadron in Winnipeg, and assigned to 19 Wing Comox to hold search and rescue standby.

Ben Hopkins, deputy zone commander for the north east zone, said the local PEPAIR/ CASARA group was key in creating a crash scenario for the 442 squadron to train. “The SAR techs jumped and treated our case driven casualties at a remote location,” said Hopkins. “We then provided ground transport to the team back to the C130 Hercules.”

The aircraft was first spotted in the local skies over the lunch hour and later departed the region shortly after 3 p.m.

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT OUR LOCAL Fort St John North Peace MUSEUM

Volunteer your time to help with events or archiving our history

Donate funds towards the museum’s expansion plan, keeping the doors open, events and special projects (like the solar panel project)

Become a Member to enjoy free admission and receive updates about upcoming exhibits, events and keep up to date on various museum projects

Stop by and find out more about our local Museum along 100 Street next to Centennial Park in Fort St John

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