A Message from Renascent’s CEO & Board Chair

Renascent’s Mission is clear and deeply understood by our employees, board members, donors, volunteers, and partners: “To help save lives through compassionate, transformative, and evidence-based addiction and mental health programs.”

Collaboration, connection, and community underscored our efforts over the past year. Building back from the COVID-19 Pandemic, Renascent’s dedicated teams and partners worked together to help more people access our life-saving programs and invest in program development. 

At a time when addiction treatment is needed desperately by so many, Renascent has been able to continue to increase the number of people served through our programs. This was the case across every Renascent treatment program over 2022-2023, from our Live-in and Virtual Intensive Treatment Programs, to our Family Programs and Continuing Care Programs. 

Expanding capacity and meeting the high level of need in our communities meant we had to continually adapt and optimize our programming. Increased flexibility and reduced restrictions within our inpatient/live-in programs also allowed us to increase connection within our centres. Our developing Virtual Intensive Treatment Program expanded further, increasing our ability to deliver much needed intensive treatment programs to communities across Ontario.

Additionally, as part of our successful efforts to provide more support to families and individuals post-treatment, investments were made in our Continuing Care and Family Programs, which expanded essential access to individuals, their family members and loved ones. 

Our staff are the life-blood of our organization – they inspire our clients when all seems lost, they educate and provide them with tools that will help them live a life full of possibility after treatment. This year, Team Renascent showcased their skill, best-practice approaches, and commitment to helping clients through our accreditation process. Thanks to everyone’s exceptional teamwork, Renascent demonstrated true service excellence by achieving another four-year accreditation with the Canadian Centre for Accreditation.

We are able to deliver life-saving care to clients thanks to the generosity of our private and corporate donors, whose gifts enable us to provide a full continuum of care that supports clients, alumni, and their family members along the entire journey of recovery. Whether giving through corporate sponsorships, supporting fundraising events, or donating directly to Renascent Foundation, every dollar we receive is used to make a life-changing difference, and we are incredibly grateful for the support.

We also remain thankful for our community partners who bolster the programs and services we provide to our clients and their families, ensuring their best chances for long-term recovery. These partnerships provide scaffolding support that allow our alumni to flourish after treatment.

This past year, Sue Jaffe transitioned from her position of Chair of our Board of Directors to Immediate Past Chair.   Sue has been a long-time volunteer for Renascent, has been on the Board since 2016, and in the Chair role since 2017. We are truly grateful for Sue’s extraordinary service, as well as the dedication, passion and leadership she provided over her term.

We look forward to the coming fiscal year with excitement and optimism, as we continue to execute on our bold and ambitious strategic plan.

Karen Martin
Chair, Board of Directors
Renascent Fellowship and
Renascent Foundation

Renascent awarded accreditation for high-quality programs and practices

In early 2023, after months of preparation, Renascent was awarded a four-year accreditation by Canadian Centre for Accreditation.

This designation came after Renascent successfully meet all 50 mandatory standards outlined by the accreditation body’s Organizational and Community Mental Health and Addiction spheres, as well as 26 of its 28 leading practice standards.

The Canadian Centre for Accreditation highlighted many of Renascent’s strengths in their final report. Among those listed included Renascent’s intake process, flexibility in removing barriers to service, cultural safety initiates, medication management, professional development through access to managers and other leaders, information management, communications, financial processes, and the evidence-informed, recovery-oriented, individualized treatment we provide to clients.

“Undergoing accreditation is a rigorous process which includes an extensive third-party review of Renascent’s practices and procedures, to ensure that we meet stringent standards for quality of care, and organizational performance. I am thrilled that Renascent achieved another four-year accreditation, and was commended by the Canadian Centre for Accreditation for its organizational performance,” shared Laura Bhoi, CEO, Renascent. “I am extremely proud of the caring and exceptional work of our dedicated team, and most importantly, of how this translates into recovery and healing for the many people we serve.

The accreditation review team highlighted Renascent’s singleness of purpose, and how our values and person-centered, strength-based approach, are evident across the entire organization. Everyone the review team spoke with, regardless of their role, location and area of responsibility, echoed this sentiment.

Collaboration, connection, and community were at the heart of Renascent’s recent four-year accreditation.

The Canadian Centre for Accreditation described Renascent as a client-centred agency delivering excellent programming and services to clients. Of note, the review team was impressed by the dedication and drive of the staff to meet clients’ needs, the strong continuity of care and coordination practices, and the constant review of barriers for clients and finding ways of addressing them.”

This remarkable result was made possible by Team Renascent through months of collaboration, which brought together team members from across the organization to review, adapt, and communicate our processes, policies, and approach,” says Michael Lochran, Director, Programs and Operations, Renascent.

Virtual Intensive Treatment Program grows with funding

Each workday offers the perfect combination of challenge and fulfilment for Suzan Morrison, an Addictions Counsellor with Renascent’s Virtual Intensive Treatment Program.

Having been a member of the team for close to two years, Suzan feels at home in the role. She found her purpose as “this role has brought my three favourite things together: my experience, my education, and my passion for helping people,” she says.

This past year, the Virtual Intensive Treatment Program team was able to help more clients than ever across Ontario. It grew to serve 331 people (14% more than the previous year). Additionally, to ensure that clients were able to access the community support needed to aid in their recovery and health, Renascent launched integrated province-wide case management for clients.

Fully-funded by the Ontario Government, the Program is a life-line for people across the province who want to stop using drugs and alcohol. Through the part-time program, clients have more flexibility than live-in addiction treatment programs as they are able to continue attending school or work, while attending group and individual counselling sessions.

With government funding secured until March 31, 2024, the year ahead will prove to be exciting for this Program. Results from the formal Program evaluation which was conducted in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, will be shared.

Live-in treatment continues to evolve to meet clients’ needs

Throughout the past year, Renascent’s live-in treatment programs experienced a period of profound and transformative growth. This journey of change has been marked by an impactful shift as we navigated through the loosening of COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions and readapted to our new normal.

Group sessions, admission processes, integration with medical care, client crisis management and strong collaboration with the community medical and mental health system, have all evolved through dedication to supporting the complex needs of Renascent’s clients.

Collaboration between Renascent’s live-in clinical teams, Clinical Leadership, Business Development and the Client Care Access and Engagement team has allowed for the development of creative solutions and flexible support models. During this past fiscal year, this collective approach has enabled us to successfully serve more than 750 clients in our live-in treatment centres. This marks a 19% increase from our 2021/22 fiscal year.

The combination of the established evidence-informed, 12-step, abstinence-based treatment – which forms the foundation of our program and interventions – continues to create a sector leading transformative approach to addiction treatment.

Supporting families through recovery

This year, Renascent’s Family Program served a record number of children and families. With 381 people served, this marked an 8% increase over last year. The team also delivered 116 hours of one-on-one counselling to children and over 100 hours of family and individual counselling support to clients.

Connection was a prominent theme within Renascent’s donor-funded Intensive Family Care Program throughout this past fiscal year. With the Program having moved online due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, staff were eager to host in-person activities for the first time since 2020.

In the fall, Renascent piloted a four-day Children’s Healthy Coping Skills Retreat, partnering with Salvation Army Ontario Camping – Jackson’s Point Camp to host children and their parents/caregivers.

“Everyone who attended the retreat had a wonderful time. The Family Team was able to create a very holistic and therapeutic environment to help children and their caregivers process what they were going through with in-person support from our staff,” said Sunil Boodhai, Manager, Family and Outpatient Programs, Renascent.

With Renascent’s Family and Children’s Programs being delivered virtually, the Program has become more accessible to people from across Ontario. Since Renascent aims to reduce barriers people face to accessing the care they need to recover from addiction, the team continues work towards increasing access and meeting clients where they are at; with plans to deliver a hybrid model of this program.

Answering calls for help

At a frail 108 pounds, Dustin Cunning sat among family members and surrendered. He lived in active addiction for about 17 years until that unsuspecting day when his family staged his intervention. It was that day which would be the catalyst that changed his life.

Today, more than five years into his recovery, Dustin works as an Intake Counsellor at Renascent’s Client Care and Access Centre. He is part of a mighty team which acts as the first point of contact for someone who is interested in Renascent’s treatment programs.

The team speaks with family members, loved ones, and people in need of our programs and services. Last year, the team had 31,446 connections (phone calls and emails) with people looking for help. This includes phone calls and emails to Renascent.

They triage calls, assesses people’s treatment and care needs, make recommendations regarding the internal or external programs or services that may help, and document and review prospective clients’ addiction history along with other pertinent health care information they share.

“I decided I wanted to be an addictions counsellor while in treatment. I saw first-hand these amazing, special counsellors who used their darkness to light the way for others. It was so inspiring,” says Dustin.

He gushes a bit about his life in recovery – one that he did not think was possible. He is now able to be the husband, father and son he has always wanted to be.

Helping people break free of addiction with online support

A multi-faceted approach is integral to recovery from addiction. At Renascent, we encourage clients to take a holistic view of their recovery and adopt tools that will help provide the greatest chances of long-term success.

In 2021, thanks to funding from the Ontario Government, Breaking Free Online became one of the tools that Renascent was able to offer its clients and those of community partner agencies in Toronto. In the last fiscal year, Renascent saw tremendous growth in the number of clients and clients’ of health system partners who adopted the online platform as part of their addiction and mental health toolkit.

Paid for by Ontario Health, Breaking Free Online is a free virtual support tool available to all Ontarians over the age of 16, including Renascent clients and alumni, to help reduce or stop the use of over 70 substances, such as tobacco, alcohol and drugs, including opioids.

In the last year, Renascent enrolled nearly 500 people into the online platform and became the Leading Implementation Support Site of Breaking Free Online for the Province, accounting for 64% of Toronto Region Account Activations, and 18% across Ontario.

This is significant because the Program helps people develop coping skills and access key resources they can use during or after their treatment.

Bringing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to the forefront

The important work of bringing conversations, learnings, and actions around diversity, equity, and inclusion to the forefront, continues at Renascent.

With Diversity and Inclusion as a strategic objective in Renascent’s 2021-2026 Strategic Plan, the organization has a clear vision for years to come. Supporting this effort, is Renascent’s Diversity Committee, which actively works on creating a more inclusive, equitable, and diverse environment for clients and staff.

Donors in Action

Over $750,000 was raised to support Renascent’s life-saving Mission this year.

Renascent’s donors play an invaluable role in helping us deliver high-quality addiction treatment. They help bridge the gap between the government funding Renascent receives and the cost of delivering essential care. It is also through the support of donors that Renascent is able to fund other programs that support the full continuum of care for people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. This includes the Continuing Care, Alumni, Children’s and Family Programs.

Despite the challenging economic environment, people and corporations stepped-up generously to support Renascent. The generosity of our community is truly impactful.

“Our donors play a vital role at Renascent. Through amounts big and small, they help our teams care for our clients; they provide hope to people who feel that all is lost. We couldn’t be more grateful for their impact,” says Christina Selvaggio, Manager, Philanthropy, Renascent Foundation.

Recovery Shot raises more than $200,000!

Renascent’s 28th Recovery Shot Golf Tournament ended with sunshine, smiles, and $206,100 in donations.

“This year’s event may have been our best one yet,” says Guy Bonnell, Tournament Chair. “Not only did we have incredible weather and a great time, we raised awareness and unprecedented funds to support the critical work happening every day at Renascent. It was a great day of golf, and it was a day that helped Renascent save lives.

Again supported by title sponsor Unifor, the tournament was held on September 21, 2022 at Angus Glen Golf Club. The day included delicious food, silent and live auctions, a 50/50 draw, prizes and moving alumni stories. SportsNet host, Justin Bourne, emceed the evening in style by sharing powerful stories of his own recovery and encouraging attendees to participate in fundraising activities.

In addition to Unifor and tournament participants, partner sponsor Ford Motor Company and other corporate sponsors generously supported the event. Among their contributions was a pre-game BBQ lunch provided by Toronto Electrical Industry Benefit Administration Services Limited and IBEW Local 353.

“We were thrilled to host our many supporters once again at Recovery Shot Golf Tournament,” notes Renascent CEO, Laura Bhoi. “This wonderful event combines friendly competition and comradery with a truly meaningful way to make a difference. To have such strong continued support for this event, illustrates our community’s compassion and generosity.”

To date, the tournament has raised over $2.5 million to support addiction recovery.

Donors step-up for Road to Recovery

In 2020, Tammie started treatment at Renascent’s Graham Munro Treatment Centre (Munro Centre). While there, her family received counselling and support through Renascent’s donor-funded Family Program. The care that Tammie and her family received was life-changing. So, when she received an invitation to participate in Renascent’s third annual Road to Recovery Walk/Run (Road to Recovery),
she leapt at the opportunity to give back.

“I participated in Renascent’s Road to Recovery to help give back the hope that I was given during my stay at Munro Centre,” shares Tammie.

Last year, teams and individual walkers had their choice of joining one of three pre-planned routes in Toronto or creating their own anywhere they liked during September. And in addition to enjoying the fellowship, participants raised an impressive $12,200 to give hope and healing to those beginning their recovery and provide life-changing support for their families and loved ones.

“Participants and donors ‘stepped up’ once again by raising awareness and funds for our lifesaving programs,” explains Tania Archer, Director of Business Development and Philanthropy. “This year, we are so grateful for all their efforts and contributions, which are needed now more than ever. The impact of these donations is truly incredible; they are helping people reclaim their lives.”

September is also Recovery Month – a time to bring awareness of addiction to the forefront. So beyond the funds raised, is another powerful message: that recovery from addiction is possible.

The event was made possible by generous community and business supporters, including Kerrs Candy, Kaia Naturals and Herbaland, who contributed to goodie bags for all walkers and runners.

Renascent-branded hoodies provide more than warmth

Last summer, Renascent staff were gifted Renascent-branded hoodies as a ‘thank you’ for their service and dedication. It did not take long before Renascent clients and alumni began requesting to purchase similar Renascent-branded hoodies for themselves.

A few short months later, Renascent Foundation launched renascentshop.ca – an e-commerce site dedicated to selling hoodies, with a portion of the proceeds from each sale going to support Renascent’s programs and services.

“This initiative was well received. It was great to see alumni, clients, and donors purchasing hoodies in support of the
life-saving work that our teams do every day,” said Christina Selvaggio, Manager, Philanthropy, Renascent Foundation. “While the purchase of a hoodie may be a practical one, the funds raised support Renascent’s Mission, which in-turn impacts people, families, and communities across Ontario.”

Kindness Grams deliver hope to clients

Renascent champions – donors, alumni, staff, and members of the recovery community – rallied together to send clients across our programs a message of hope. These Kindness Grams were delivered to clients in honour of Family Day, in February 2023.

“Clients were thrilled to receive the messages of hope,” shared Jessica Maronski, Manager, Renascent Graham Munro Treatment Centre. “The Kindness Grams were very well received and helped lift client’s spirits. I know many of the clients connected with the messages and were so grateful for the thoughtfulness and support they received.”

Clients in Renascent’s intensive inpatient program received handwritten cards and a sweet treat with their message of hope. Clients in Renascent’s Virtual Intensive Treatment Program, as well as Renascent’s donor-funded Continuing Care and Family Programs received their message via email because these programs are delivered virtually. While clients in Renascent’s Children’s Program received handwritten cards in the mail, along with a colouring sheet and crayons generously donated by The Little Celebration Company.

“We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of messages that we received from people who wanted to wish our clients well,” said Christina Selvaggio, Manager, Philanthropy, Renascent.

Guardian Angels lift clients up

For Renascent Guardian Angel sponsors and long-time Renascent champions, Stephen and Arlene Waymire, giving is part of the circle of recovery. Through gifts of philanthropy, the couple aims to deliver and magnify the hope of a brighter future for communities across Ontario for generations to come.

On October 18, Renascent and the Waymire family welcomed over 100 attendees to the first hybrid Guardian Angel Celebration and the first in-person celebration since 2019. In line with the tradition of this occasion, the time was dedicated to acknowledging the generosity of our donors and honoring the recipients of two prestigious awards: the Yielding Family Legacy Recovery Awards and the
Peter Armstrong Community Award of Excellence.

Guests also heard the incredible stories of two alumni, who received life-saving care at Renascent.

Yielding Family Legacy Recovery Awards

Yielding Family Legacy Recovery Awards are given annually in honour of Dr. Ed Yielding, former Medical Director at Renascent, his wife (and assistant) Bobby, and their daughter Linda.

They recognize the excellence, commitment and impact of Renascent staff, volunteers, board members or donors. There is an open nomination process for these awards every year. This year, an unprecedented six Yielding Awards were presented to these worthy recipients:

• David Elliot, who has helped thousands of men change their lives as both a Spiritual Consultant and Addictions Counsellor at Renascent.
• Bill Smith, a longstanding Renascent volunteer and tireless recovery advocate.
• Lynn Evans, a Renascent Addictions Counsellor who ensures programming is therapeutic through artful expressions.
• Team Renascent, in recognition of every Renascent team member for their extraordinary service and teamwork during a most difficult period.
• Renascent’s Kitchen Teams, who play a critical nourishing role in the recovery of our clients and staff at our three inpatient treatment centres.
• Renascent’s Client Care Access and Engagement Team, who pivoted during COVID-19 to create a fully virtual team without any disruption to clients.

Peter Armstrong Community Award of Excellence

The Peter Armstrong Community Award of Excellence recognizes community members, partners and organizations that have made strong contributions to the field of addiction and have advanced care for those in need of recovery.

There is an open nomination process for these awards every year. This year, Armstrong awards were awarded to two exceptional recipients:

• Women’s College Hospital Scheduling COVID-19 Assessment Centre team, whose extraordinary support facilitated rapid access to PCR Tests to help combat the spread of COVID-19
• Jordan Anderson, Executive Director of Alpha House, founding member of Narcotics Anonymous – Durham Region, and long-time advocate for Overdose Awareness Day, for his tireless work to break down barriers for people struggling with addiction.

By the Numbers (2022/2023)