Featured Resource

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DTES Community Resource Guide – Winter 2020

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A Manifesto for Ethical Research in the Downtown Eastside

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Vikki Reynolds – Articles

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Confronting anti-homeless & anti-substance user stigma in BC

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Making Stigma Visible

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A roadmap for making mental health and addictions care better for people in BC

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Social Science & Medicine

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International Journal of Drug Policy

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Gendered violence and overdose prevention sites: a rapid ethnographic study during an overdose . . . epidemic in Vancouver, Canada

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PACE – By, With and For Sex Workers

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PIVOT Legal Society

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The Mental Health Commission of Canada

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Canadian Mental Health Association – BC

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US – Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

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BC Centre on Substance Use

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Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs

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Canadian Drug Policy Coalition

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BC Harm Reduction Services

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BC Centre for Disease Control

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CATIE – Canada’s Resource for HIV and Hep C Information

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Your support for a healthy future with HIV

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AIDS Vancouver

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International Peer Support

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Northern Initiative for Social Action

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Spotlight on Mental Health – Peer Support

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Peer Support Canada

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Workplace Strategies for Mental Health

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BC’s Queer, Trans and Two-spirit resource centre

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Health Initiative for Men

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Resource Directory

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Community Services List

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Resource Directory

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BC Aboriginal Network on Disability Network

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Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive Council

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Resource Directory

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Resource Directory

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Sex Work Awareness for Everyone

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Drop in Centre

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The See Stigma stigma mapping tool is a visual activity designed in collaboration with peer experts . . . who have lived experience of: gender diversity, neurodiversity, substance use, indigeneity and with living with a mental health diagnosis.

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National Harm Reduction Coalition creates spaces for dialogue and action that help heal the harms . . . caused by racialized drug policies.

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A compilation of various resource documents into one extensive reader.

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The Vancouver Community Coalition Against Prohibition and Overdose (VAN CCAPO) Street Degree began . . . as a peer informed and peer driven education collaboration between Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), the Portland Hotel Society, the Tenant Overdose Response Organizers, the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society, DUDES Club, and the Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War, with the goal of furthering the work being done by peers in the domains of overdose prevention, safe supply, housing, food security, and outreach. The VAN CCAPO Street Degree has peers engage and take leadership in content development and thereby addresses inequality and recreates the hierarchy of expertise while incorporating the wealth of knowledge found in lived experience. This helps break down barriers, decrease discrimination, and empowers peers as pivotal members of our community. Peers have stepped up in both the design and ongoing feedback of this education process as well as in the facilitation of courses. This education series could not happen without the contribution of peers, their knowledge, and their skills.

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Indigenous peoples, communities, and cultures are strong. While the experiences of First Nations, . . . Métis and Inuit in Canada are unique, they have all experienced hundreds of years of colonization, persecution and on-going structural violence that was intended to push them to the margins of society. In the face of such oppression, however, with the guidance of Elders, ceremonies, and local Indigenous knowledges that have been passed down through generations, Indigenous peoples, languages, cultures, and traditions have not only survived, they have been revived, reclaimed, and revitalized. This can be no more important than now, amid Canada’s on-going opioid and overdose crisis, in which Indigenous peoples are over-represented.

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The Peer-2-Peer project aims to identify, implement, and evaluate peer-led support interventions for . . . peers/ experiential workers in overdose response settings. See below for project background, the ROSE model and best practice manual, COVID-19 support tools and the compassionate action campaign series.

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CIE facilitates community based dialogues across BC that provide opportunities to build capacity and . . . develop networks across and within health services and community agencies to foster and promote accessible, inclusive and culturally safe harm reduction services through ongoing peer engagement.

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The PEEP Project is an innovative initiative to ensure everyone across the province has access to . . . harm reduction services.

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NORS is an overdose prevention hotline for Canadians providing loving, confidential, nonjudgmental . . . support for you, whenever and wherever you use drugs. Call (Canada only): 1-888-688-NORS(6677) Call Never Use Alone (US only): 1-800-484-3731 Mobile App (Global): The Brave App

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The right services to youth and their families—at the right time and in the right place. Youth . . . Wellness Hubs Ontario (YWHO) is an initiative that aims to bring the right services to youth (and their families) at the right time and in the right place. YWHO is a critical step toward improving Ontario’s mental health and addiction services for youth and young adults.

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Wellness Together Canada is a platform for Canadians to access free mental health and substance use . . . support, with funding from the Government of Canada. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented number of people have been struggling with problems like worry, low mood, problematic substance use, and more. Wellness Together Canada was created in response to this crisis.

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Dissatisfied with the lack of information available on autism in adults, in 2018 we founded Embrace . . . Autism (called Embrace ASD until April 2021), which we intended as a platform to distribute research and experience-based information on autism.

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The BCCSU Drug Checking Project is a provincial pilot that partners with harm reduction . . . organizations across British Columbia to implement and evaluate community-based drug checking services. Partner sites in this project use two technologies in combination to check drugs: Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and immunoassay strips that test for the presence of fentanyl or benzodiazepines.

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The Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs (CAPUD) is the national drug user organization in . . . Canada. Our board and staff are comprised entirely of people who use(d) drugs. One of our main purposes is to empower people who currently use drugs deemed illegal to survive and thrive, with their human rights respected and their voices heard. We envision a world where drugs are regulated and the people who use them are decriminalized. We are survivors of this war and we’ll continue to fight for policy reform that is based in evidence, understanding and compassion. We didn’t start the war, but we will end it!

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The First Nations Virtual Substance Use and Psychiatry Service provides individuals with access to . . . specialists in addictions medicine and psychiatry as well as mental health and wellness care coordinators.

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Moms Stop The Harm calls for an end to the failed war on drugs through evidence-based prevention, . . . treatment and policy change. We support a harm reduction approach that is both compassionate and non-discriminatory for people who use substances.

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Communitas Supportive Care Society is a faith-based, registered charity providing care in . . . communities across British Columbia to those living with developmental disabilities, mental health challenges, and acquired brain injury. We provide services ranging from 24-hour residential care to skills-based day programs to respite care for families. We also support people living with mental health challenges in BC through initiatives like Peer Support and WRAP facilitation. At Communitas, we support people of all abilities, from all walks of life, regardless of faith, social standing, race or ethnicity.

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While working in a harm reduction service, you might find that it’s mostly focused on reducing one . . . specific harm, while forgetting the depth and complexity of all the issues that affect people using, and working in, harm reduction services. One area that is often overlooked are the unique needs and strengths of autistic people (and neurodivergent people in general).

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One of the foundations of peer support work is that the worker and the peer will share some elements . . . of life experience and/or identity. It can be very powerful and transformative to connect with someone who has shared a common struggle, and to grow and learn with each other by sharing life stories and lessons learned.

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Addressing Indigenous-specific Racism and Discrimination in B.C. Health Care.