The Coming Full Circle pilot program offering support to people with mental health and substance use challenges has recorded 900 visits since launching last September. Now, program co-ordinator David Barkley is trying to find a way to keep the initiative running long-term.
The program was announced in spring 2025 as a two-year partnership between Point in Time, the Canadian Mental Health Association Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge (CMHA-HKPR) and the Haliburton County Connections Committee. It was funded through a one-time $800,000 grant via Health Canada’s substance use and addictions program.
That money runs out this year, with Barkley looking for other potential revenue streams to keep the Haliburton village drop in running.
“To get approved, we had to show there was a need. Now we’ve proven the need is there and we have a successful program that people are accessing, so our next steps need to be about longevity,” Barkley said. “Future funding is going to dictate how long, but also what more we could offer.”
He said the drop-ins typically attract between 10 and 20 people. Because of the positive response, Barkley said they’ve expanded from being open twice a week to at least three days. They run Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and every second and fourth Friday
from 5 to 8 p.m. at 83 Maple Ave. Unit 7A. Barkley was one of the speakers at a Haliburton Kawartha Lakes Northumberland Drug Strategy symposium, held in Lindsay May 28. He told attendees that the key to his program’s success has been using people with lived experience
of substance use or mental health issues to connect with those struggling.
“We provide a space where people can talk to us about their struggles and not feel judged. We’re connecting more with the person themselves, more so than the substances they’re using,” Barkley said.
“It’s about building real trust with people.” Ashley Smoke, the local drug strategy co-ordinator, said her organization is committed to hosting meet-ups between service providers at least once per year.
She talked about the four-pillar approach many community organizations use to support people – prevention, treatment, harm reduction and community safety. She said partners work on solutions to help decrease substance use related harms.
“During the pandemic, there wasn’t a lot of this kind of thing going on and that contributed to things kind of spiralling out of control. A lot of people fell through the cracks,” Smoke said. “I have lived experience and when I moved to this area five years ago, there was nothing like this. I was left without a lot of support on my journey.”
She said some of the more common drugs she sees being used in the region now are medetomidine, fentanyl and an even more
highly-potent strain of opioids known as nitazenes. Smoke said those in the field are still familiarizing themselves with the impacts of newer drugs entering the system.
“We’re going into a new age. We finally got used to what overdoses looked like and how to treat them, but now with some of these newer substances, it’s scary… Naloxone doesn’t help in a lot of instances, so we don’t know how to treat or help people,” Smoke said.
Lakelands Public Health’s Dr. Thomas Piggott also presented, tracing the beginnings of the drug crisis back to what he sees as the overprescribing of certain oxycodones and the dependency issues they present. Tim Farquharson, police chief in Port Hope, spoke about the ways officers have been trained to deal with mental health and addictions episodes. The John Howard Society presented on the importance of establishing community integrated care hubs, prioritizing holistic care for people rather than detox and rehab.
Mary Sisson, manager of the Youth Wellness Hub in Haliburton, also attended. She said more young people are turning to drugs to deal with life’s stresses.
She said the youth hub has a full-time nurse practitioner, care co-ordinator, mental health and substance use clinician and a therapist who works with neurodivergent youth, who are all busy tackling the problem.
“When we work with older youth, substance use starts to show up a little more,” she said, noting youth there have reported using various substances from alcohol and cannabis to more illicit drugs. “When they come in, they’re not asking for support with substance use or addiction, but through conversations and building trust we see those issues start to present.”
Creating a safe space for these people to escape their everyday pressures has been key to turning their situations around, Sisson said.
Through their PreVenture program, aimed at those aged 12 to 18, the youth hub hosts various workshops designed to help students
learn useful coping skills, set long-term goals and channel their personality towards achieving them.
“These kids like to feel safe and a sense of belonging. Our focus is definitely more on prevention, but we have to build up to that
point,” Sisson said
