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About Us
Our Mission
Our mission is to provide seamless, comprehensive and effective harm reduction services and a full range of addictions treatment services that are amenable to an individual’s needs and goals.
Our services are offered through community-based facilities with a focus on street and community outreach.
Philosophy
Breakaway has always operated on a non abstinance basis, emphasizing instead the treatment of all aspects of our client’s lives and situations. In the last 15 years this approach has become known as harm reduction and forms the philosophical basis for all our work.
Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies that reduce negative consequences of drug use, incorporating a spectrum of strategies from safer use, to managed use to abstinence. Harm reduction strategies meet drug users "where they're at," addressing conditions of use along with the use itself.
Components of Harm Reduction
What it is: |
What it is not: |
Recognizes a continuum of use and variety of patterns |
A dichotomy between abstinence or addiction |
Aims at reducing harms at several levels (individual, community, society) and in several areas (health, economic, social, legal) |
One dimensional |
Integrated approach to all psychoactive substances |
Licit versus illicit |
Pragmatic, results-oriented; emphasizes evaluation of effectiveness |
Hunches, crusades, guesswork |
More focus on community and informal controls |
Less emphasis on formal controls and institutions |
Inclusionary of drug users in the larger society |
Exclusionary, punitive, stigmatizing |
Includes specified objectives and wide range of strategies for their achievement |
Vague, unmeasurable claims |
Public health grounded, population-based model |
Market model of supply/demand |
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History
Breakaway Youth and Family Services was established in 1989 by the two Children’s Aid Societies in Etobicoke. It was designed to meet the treatment needs of youth 12 to 25. Our original services were provided on a “modified outreach” basis, meaning counsellors would go to schools, coffee shops and other locations to see clients as well as providing services out of their offices.
In 1991 we received funding for two staff to provide full street outreach services to Etobicoke youth. The next year this program was fully funded by the Ministry of Health. This service established the first needle exchange service in Etobicoke with the endorsement of the then City of Etobicoke. This service has since expanded to provide a full range of safer sex and harm reduction materials including “crack kits”.
In 1994 Breakaway in partnership with the George Hull Centre and the Toronto District Board of Education received funding for Clear Directions, a day treatment facility serving high school aged youth with “concurrent disorders” (suffering from both substance abuse and mental health problems). This program has been very successful and recently received funding to provide services in the evening and on weekends.
In 2000 Breakaway and the Parkdale Community Health Centre concluded negotiations to transfer the operation of the Satellite Methadone Clinic to Breakaway. This move resulted in a doubling of the overall size of the organization and completed our move to providing services for all ages (The Outreach Service had been open to all ages since 1991). At this point our name was officially changed from Breakaway Youth and Family Services to Breakaway.
In 2009, Breakaway celebrated 20 years of providing services.
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Board of Directors
Breakaway Addiction Services is governed by a community Board of Directors. Essentially the membership of the Board is drawn from citizens either living or working in the community. Persons from all walks of life have been or are represented on the Board, in an effort to reflect a broad cross-section of the community and a diverse number of viewpoints. Efforts are made to ensure that there is a sufficient balanced, equitable representation from business, professional, ethno-racial and other groups located in the community and served by the agency.
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Our Staff
Breakaway Addiction Services is proud to employ accomplished staff who bring commitment and dedication to their work. These individuals possess a high degree of skill and experience in working with substance use, trauma and child and family issues and services.
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