Category: Articles | Page 14

Transitioning from incarceration to the community: Reducing risks and improving lives of people who use substances

November 23, 2020 • By Michelle Proctor-Simms, Lindsay Wallace, Cindy MacIsaac, Matthew Bonn, Megan Horochuk and Melody MacLachlan

To help incarcerated people who use substances successfully integrate back into their communities, Direction 180 started the Peers Assisting and Lending Support (PALS) program in January 2019 through harm reduction funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada. Direction 180 is a community-based organization that offers an opioid treatment program in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

HIV self-testing: An unnecessary disruption or a democratizing equalizer?

November 4, 2020 • By Dr. Nitika Pant Pai

I feel like a historian sometimes, when I reflect on each meeting or conference session’s proceedings that I have attended internationally, nationally and locally on the topic of HIV self-testing in the past decade or so. I can see patterns in behaviour, consonance and dissonance of thought, speech and action, and I am left in awe and wonder why we humans don’t end up doing the right thing for other fellow humans in need. For key populations, who need our voice to get the products and services they so rightly deserve.

Satellite Sites: Providing harm reduction from the homes of people who use drugs

October 13, 2020 • By Liam Michaud, Gillian Kolla and Rhiannon Thomas

The term “satellite sites” is used to refer to informal harm reduction hubs operating out of the homes of people who use drugs. Operating in Toronto for more than 20 years, these sites offer access to sterile drug use supplies outside of more formal settings like health centres. Although many satellite sites offer much more than this – including naloxone and overdose response training, needle disposal and referrals to healthcare services. Satellite programs emerged from the recognition that people who use drugs were already doing this work within their communities, operating informally to meet harm reduction needs and respond to a range of other health needs.

Re-imagining HIV prevention with young adult Black same-gender-loving men

October 7, 2020 • By David Absalom

Current HIV prevention efforts have and continue to fail Black same-gender-loving (SGL)* men. But with meaningful reflection and changes to service delivery, this can change.

Valuing lived experience of substance use in our organizations: Five areas of policy and best practice

September 1, 2020 • By Murray Jose-Boerbridge

Does your organization support the meaningful engagement of individuals with lived experience of substance use? The assumption and our immediate response to this question should be a resounding yes! However, we know that this is often not the case.

Testing for HIV at home: How Ottawa is piloting self-testing

August 12, 2020 • By Alexandra Musten

To end the HIV epidemic in Canada, it is important for people who are HIV-positive to know their status and to be linked to care. To do that, we have to reach people who are not testing now and make the process easier for them.