THE NORTHERN Health Authority is closing down the northwest’s only youth addictions residential treatment facility to help balance its budget.

The Atlas facility, located on the bench, is to close Dec. 31, saving the authority a little more than $650,000 a year.

All told, the authority is carving out approximately $1 million from mental health and addictions spending across the north as part of a plan to save $14 million by next year to balance a budget capped at $626 million.

The northwest has to come up with $2 million toward that $14 million goal.

The health authority told the Terrace and District Community Services Society, which operates the youth facility, it was cancelling the contract approximately three weeks ago.

Services society executive director Marilyn Lissimore said the news wasn’t entirely unexpected.

She said rumours had been circulating for some time of cuts to addictions services throughout the province.

“We would get phone calls from referral agents and they’d be surprised we were open,” Lissimore said last week.

She said numbers at the facility had been declining lately because of uncertainty as to whether it would remain open.

There have been 475 young people who have gone through the Atlas program since it opened approximately nine years ago, Lissimore added.

At first, the six-bed Atlas facility was classified as a provincial resource, meaning it accepted young people from all over the province and not just the north or northwest.

In the past few years, the health authority had asked that it concentrate more on northern and northwestern young people, said Lissimore.

That may have also contributed to the decline in usage to the 60 per cent range, she said.

“The feeling is now that those youth could be accommodated by Prince George,” said Lissimore of a facility there called the Nechako Youth Treatment Centre which is also financed by the health authority.

She described the two places as completely different in that the Nechako centre has a hospital atmosphere while the Atlas facility, in a house on the bench, is in a residential neighbourhood.

“The Atlas program here is excellent,” Lissimore said. “Here they live in a house, they go to recreation facilities, they can attend AA and NA meetings and they can volunteer at the [animal] shelter.”

The Northern Health Authority’s official in charge of mental health and addiction programs says the closure is part of a sweeping change which he expects will improve service overall, help more people and save money.

What’s happening, says Jim Campbell, is a separation of time-specific programs tied to a residential facility in favour of day programs which people can join at any time.

Those people going to a day program then have the option of staying in their own homes in their own communities, he said.

“And if they need a support recovery bed, we can then provide that,” said Campbell.

The Nechako youth facility will stay open in Prince George for those who still need that level of treatment, he added.

“Some people do not want to get services in their home community,” Campbell said.

The shift in youth addiction treatment from residential to a combination of residential and day program is also going on with adult addiction services.

It means that in Terrace the authority wants to open what it calls support recovery beds for men, women and young people.

“Ideally, we do not want them in the same location,” said Campbell.

To that end, the authority and Lissimore have been negotiating a possible new role for the community services society in providing a level of help for youth.

Campbell wants to have beds in place for adults and young people within three or four months.

The authority is also doing the same in Prince Rupert, he adds.

Campbell and another authority official, Steve Raper, said it is important not to fixate on dollar amounts just yet.

That’s because while there is a savings in closing Atlas, other money will be spent on day programs and support recovery beds.

“This is a process we are going through,” said Raper in describing the ways and means the authority is looking to save money.

“There will be a figure but it may not come as fast as you would like,” he added.

In the meantime, 10 full time employees at Atlas represented by the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union have received their notices.

So far, they’re being absorbed into the community services society’s other programs and there’s not been a lot of bumping – the term used when senior employees can take the place of more junior people, says Shelley Anderson, a union staff representative.

Atlas also had 10 casual employees and Anderson expects they’ll be merged in with the services society’s seniority list.

Lissimore says the closure of Atlas isn’t the only addictions services challenge facing the community services society.

It runs a three-member counselling operation but has been told by the health authority that while it will pay for wages and benefits, it won’t pay for any supplies.

“I’m not quite sure how we’re going to do that,” said Lissimore.

She said the society would most likely sell the Atlas residence should no other suitable use be found for it.