Dunham House

Opening up the doors to Dunham House for mental health and addiction professionals

By Taylor McClure
Townships’ Daily News Bits
CIDI 99.1 FM

Dunham House is hosting an open house event on April 22 to introduce the facility and its treatment program to mental health and addiction professionals. 

Dunham House is a residential treatment centre for individuals 18 years and older suffering from mental health disorders and concurrent disorders, particularly substance use addiction. Dunham House is geared towards the English-speaking community of the Eastern Townships and Quebec. According to its website, Dunham House is the only residential facility of its kind in the province that operates in English.  

Dunham House offers two residential programs: an intensive one-month individualized program and a six-month program, which offers additional opportunities to learn new skills. While  there,  residents partake in different workshops, counselling sessions, and therapeutic activities. Professionals at Dunham House work with their clientele to develop the skills they need to manage their illnesses and to provide themselves with a better quality of life. 

With its upcoming event, Dunham House hopes to be recognized as the facility that mental health and addiction professionals from across Quebec can turn to if their clients need extra support. 

“We really try and engage with the population for sure. Six months for mental health is sometimes not enough, but it allows them to have some stabilization, it allows them to kinda get their feet under them, to try to develop a quality of life as they get started on the next chapter,” said Anthony Berger, clinical supervisor at Dunham House. “For those struggling with substance use addiction, it really gives them a good foundation to put those coping strategies in place to deal with the underlying issues that are there.”

Berger noted that the treatment program at Dunham House is divided into “three different facets.”

“A lot of of what exists in terms of programming for people struggling with mental health or addiction is really based on 12-step approaches. We know from research that doesn’t touch everyone and especially the population that struggles with mental health or concurrent disorders, that’s not going to be effective for them,” he explained. “What we do is psycho-educational based workshops on different themes. We will touch on things like addiction and prevention, but we also talk about communication skills, we talk about regulating emotions, how to work through emotional turmoil, how to work through trauma, stress anxiety management.”

Dunham house also offers individual and group counselling sessions and therapeutic activities that residents typically enjoy, added Bereger. 

“We have someone who comes in and does an hour or two with them for pottery. We have a yoga instructor and some physical exercise as well. We have a music therapist that provides music therapy for our residents both as a group and one-one-one,” he highlighted. “We also have our equine assisted therapy program, which is done right here in the Knowlton area. How that works is that a group of residents go for six weeks at a time and it’s about horse handling and horse leading, it’s not so much about horse riding. What we really want them to work on is their self-esteem, self-confidence, but also their leadership qualities.”

Speaking on the upcoming open house event, Berger noted that is for mental health and addiction professionals that may not know about Dunham House or that are looking for residential care for their clients. 

“It’s going to allow people to get a sense as of what we do, so learn a little bit about our services, meet our staff, and also tour our facility, to get an understanding as to where they’re sending their clients and also to put a name and a face to some of these referrals,” said Berger. “It’s also to understand who they are dealing with at Dunham House. As much as we have been around for almost 20 years, the population changes. Some people forget about us, some people aren’t sure where to send their loved ones, so it’s about being out there in the community and letting people know that we exist.”

When asked why Dunham House felt that it was important to coordinate such an event, Berger told CIDI that with the pandemic they noticed an increase in substance use “across the board.” 

“People’s mental health is struggling and I think it was important that we connect with people and let people know that there are options. Obviously  a lot of  people will either go down the road of individual counselling for mental health or if their mental health is really severe they will be in hospitals. But there are different options in-between, whether out-patient services or in-patient services,” he emphasized. “The English-speaking community is not well served so we really want to make sure that they are covered and they understand that there are resources that exist.”

For more information about Dunham House. 

For details and to register for the open house event on April 22. 

Listen to the full interview below: