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Community Based Harm Reduction Programs and Practices in Canada

National Advisory Committee

Terms of Reference

The Project Advisory Committee will consist of no more than ten members. Each of the five geographical regions in Canada will be represented on the Committee. In particular, representatives on the Committee will include people who use drugs, individuals from AIDS Service Organizations who work in the area of harm reduction, individuals from community-based harm reduction organizations, the Project Consultant from the Canadian AIDS Society and an individual from the Canadian Harm Reduction Network.

The work of the Project Advisory Committee will be done by teleconference. We anticipate that there will be no more than six teleconferences (approximately one and a half hours each) which will take place over the duration of the project.

The purpose of the Project Advisory Committee is to provide recommendations on the development and content of all aspects of the project. The role of the Project Advisory Committee is to:
  • provide the Project Consultant with direction, guidance and input on project activities and outputs;
  • actively participate in teleconferences and in the development and realisation of this project;
  • assist in the selection of eight to ten cities which will be research sites;
  • facilitate where possible contacts with key stakeholders in the designated cities;
  • provide advice and insight regarding harm reduction programs and materials relating to the project;
  • consult on survey tools, work plans, communication and dissemination strategies and project evaluation;
  • check adherence of project activities to standards of best practice;
  • review the progress of and provide feedback on project activities and outputs as needed;
  • keep the project scope under control as emergent issues force changes to be considered;
  • address any issue that has major implications for the project;
  • participate to the degree possible in the information-dissemination and networking activities of the project; and
  • “champion” the involvement in the project of people experienced in using illicit drugs.

Members

Patricia Bacon
Patricia Bacon holds a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality. She is the Executive Director at Blood Ties Four Directions Centre the Yukon’s HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C organization. She also teaches human sexuality at Yukon College and works in private practice as a counselor for individuals and couples experiencing intimacy and sexual concerns. As a sexologist and a pluralist, Patricia is a strong proponent of the principles of harm reduction and encourages respect and acceptance of sexual and lifestyle diversity.

Lynne Belle-Isle
Lynne Belle-Isle has been a consultant at the Canadian AIDS Society since 2004, working on harm reduction, prison issues, the medicinal use of cannabis, epidemiology and surveillance. She headed the project on cannabis as therapy for people living with HIV/AIDS and chaired its national steering committee. A policy report with recommendations to address the barriers to access was produced, as well as a series of fact sheets to provide information to people living with HIV/AIDS on the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. She has a keen interest in drug policy and harm reduction and is thrilled to be working on this project in collaboration with The Canadian Harm Reduction Network and the National Advisory Committee. Lynne worked as an epidemiologist for 8 years before beginning her work in a community-based organization in 2002.

Walter Cavalieri
I am the Founder-Director of the Canadian Harm Reduction Network and Past President of the Board of the Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force. Since the mid 1980s, I have been practising, promoting and researching harm reduction as the basis for therapeutic collaborations with people and communities for whom drug use is problematic. I developed and, for eight years, managed the first street-based harm reduction program at a community health centre in Toronto staffed with people currently using illicit drugs and the first to house a users’ group. The program – and the group – received international celebrity with the release of FIT, a harm reduction video about safer drug use for and by drug users. FIT premiered at the International Harm Reduction Conference in 1994 and was used in many countries around the world. The government of Finland had it translated and it was used extensively for training throughout Finland.

After leaving the program at the health centre, I worked with a team of drug user experts to design five small harm reduction outreach programs in Toronto for the AIDS Bureau of Ontario’s Ministry of Health. These programs are still in operation after seven years

Between 1999 and 2004, I was a Community Liaison Researcher with the HIV Social, Behavioural and Epidemiological Studies Unit at the University of Toronto. At the Unit, I conducted street-based qualitative research about injection drug use and drug users’ perception of services and service needs and ethnographic research on the injection of crack-cocaine. I recently developed a training program for peer outreach mental health counsellors and a comprehensive harm reduction program for a Toronto neighbourhood, in response to the results of this research. At U of T, I am also actively involved in bringing a community perspective to the education of future physicians.

Currently I am working with a community committee developing an on-line training program in harm reduction to be hosted by York University.

I participated in the design of both Canada’s and Toronto’s drug strategies and am playing a similar role in the development of a drug strategy for the Province of Ontario. I was a member of the Community Advisory Board for Toronto’s aborted prescription heroin program, the planning group for Canada’s first National Forum on Crack Cocaine and the community advisory committee for Canada’s national campaign to educate youth about the potential risks of mixing cannabis and driving.

I have been on the staff of the Centre for Student Development and Counselling at Ryerson University for nine years. Along with personal counselling and therapy, my work there has focussed on developing supports and resources both for Queer and for Mature students.

Prior to becoming a social worker, I spent 20 years as a theatre professional, working in New York City and throughout Canada as a stage and production manager and educator, and in theatre PR and marketing.

Mario Gagnon
My name is Mario Gagnon. I am a former drug user, sober for 17 years now. For over 15 years now I have been involved in the application of the harm reduction approach. In fact, I have worked at Point de Repères from 1991 to 2004, and have since taken on the responsibility of director. Point de Repères is a community-based organization in Quebec City, and its main mission is health promotion, prevention, the delivery of care and services related to sexually and blood transmitted infections, as well as to drug use. In addition, I have sat on the board of directors of l’Association drogue et droit (Drugs and Rights Association) for two years and I participate as a researcher for a project on the mobilization of injection drug users in the context of HIV/AIDS prevention.

Cindy MacIsaac
My background was in hospitality management, employed with Canadian Pacific Hotels and Resorts, (from east to west and back east) I was an instructor of Fine Dining at the Culinary Institute, Holland College, Prince Edward Island. I began consuming more wine and aperitifs than I poured!....which lead me back home to Halifax to change the direction of my life. Following countless attempts at recovery (harm reduction), I finally put drugs and alcohol down on February 2nd, 1997, “Ground Hog Day” which is significant to me, I came out of the darkness and saw the light.

I returned to college to study Human Services at the Nova Scotia Community College in Truro, have taken numerous counselling skills development course with Dalhousie School of Social Work, and began working at Direction 180 in April, 2001 as a peer-support worker. I was quickly coerced into running the program, and have developed and implemented 15 initiatives to enhance our services in order to meet the needs of our clients. Now in year six, I continue to grow and evolve just as the program staff and clients have. My biggest adjustment is having Happy Hour in the morning.

PS: I love shoes, they are soul food. I have three black cats, 1 dog and 1 husband.

Gillian Maxwell
Gillian has been the chair of Keeping the Door Open: Dialogues on Drug Use (KDO) since 2002. KDO is a multi-sectoral coalition that organises dialogues on problematic substance use to educate and inform public policy.

Gillian is also the spokesperson for the Campaign for Community Safety which was formed in 2006 to advocate for the permanent status of the supervised injection facility in Vancouver, called Insite. She regularly speaks about harm reduction initiatives at international conferences.

As regional coordinator for the Canadian School of Public Service (Direxion), Gillian organises learning tours for participants in their career advancement program who are studying the economic re-vitalisation of the downtown eastside of Vancouver, through the Vancouver Agreement.

As a founding board member of the Strathcona Health Society, she oversees a community dental clinic in Strathcona School which opened in September 2002, and is successful as a model for a social enterprise. The clinic provides dental care primarily to children and their families in the downtown eastside, where many socio-economic and cultural barriers prevent them from receiving dental care.

Gillian is trained in mediation and negotiation. She has been an entrepreneur in Vancouver for twenty years, with a range of experience that includes facilitation, mediation, coaching, public speaking, marketing, promotion, networking, advocacy and organising public events. Her community involvement includes being a resident of Strathcona (downtown eastside) since 1996.

Gillian was contracted with the Vancouver Foundation as a fund developer for the Four Pillars Fund from 2003-2005.

Her volunteer work includes:
Past President of the Strathcona Residents Association
Past member of a Community Health Committee (chc2)
Past member of the Vancouver Police Board May 2000-June 2003
Past member of the Board of Directors of AIDS Vancouver 2003-2006

Marjorie McNeill
Marj McNeill has been a registered nurse for 32 years, 29 of which have been in the Northwest Territories and northern Manitoba. Presently she is employed as a Primary Health Care Nurse with the NOR-MAN Regional Health Authority in Flin Flon MB

Marj has been chairperson of the Play It Safer Network since 2001. The Play It Safer Network a network of individuals and organizations in northwestern Manitoba and northeastern Saskatchewan (72,000 sq km). The goal of the network is to implement a community based (NorMan/Nor Sask) strategy to address HIV/AIDS, STIs & Hepatitis C & Harm Reduction through education, prevention, treatment, and medical and social supports.

Marj has also served as the co-chair for the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network since 2005. While Marjorie has served as co-chair, the Network has developed a curriculum for service providers on integrating harm reduction into their practice; it has presented to the provincial government on the links between housing, homelessness, and HIV and other BBP, and has been developing policy guidelines for organizations that are looking to develop Harm Reduction policy in their workplace. She has been active on the network for many years as a member of the Policy and Practice task group and as the Northern representative to the coordinating committee. She has also actively worked to bring Peer members of the Network up North to speak in a variety of settings.

Chantale Perron
Ex-user of heroin for 11 years now, Chantale Perron has been living with HIV and hepatitis C since 1992. This is what pushed her to get involved and then work at GEIPSI (a support group for HIV positive and street involved people with a history of substance use), then at CPAVIH (Quebec’s people living with HIV committee) from 1998 to 2002. In 2005-2006, she coordinated a prison committee on the status of HIV/HCV services available to federal penitentiary inmates in Quebec. She has been back at CPAVIH for a few months now, where she is responsible for a prison project on sexually and blood transmitted infections. Over the years, Chantale Perron has specialized in “translating” HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and harm reduction information related to drug use into accessible language. She is also known to be an avid activist and advocate for people living with HIV and for people who use drugs. In 2001, she founded the first Quebec newspaper entirely produced by and for people who use drugs, the Pusher d’Infos (Info Pusher), and it has been a tremendous success. Recognition of her work and determination was highlighted when the Farha Foundation gave her the Tribute to Heroes Award in 2001.

Ryta Peschka
Ryta brings twenty years of experience from the community based and non profit organizational perspective, of which 15 years have been dedicated to the field of substance use as a program developer, counselor, educator, and facilitator. For the last 9 years, Ryta has worked exclusively in the IDU population in the HIV community, providing front line services while developing and implementing harm reduction strategies. She has presented at different levels of government on the subject. For the last 4 years she has also been teaching at a local college in the Applied Program of Crisis Management and Human Psychology. In 2005, she developed and taught the college's first introductory course on harm reduction.

Carol Romanow
I always consider my greatest achievements to be having 5 children, 5 sons at that, ages 42 to 28. I have 4 grandsons and 1 granddaughter. I am 61 and one of the "old school" who believes in the adage "nothing about us without us", whether or not it applies to women, people with disAbilities or in this case people who chose to use drugs. I have always believed that you have to walk a mile in someone’s shoes before you can understand or appreciate what life skills or experiences they have gone through.

Having been one of those who managed to kick a habit and get through life without any more serious complications, other than the heart scars I feel and Hepatitis C, I have a strong belief in harm reduction, decriminalization and regulation.

I currently work part-time for a mobile needle exchange for V.A.R.C.S. and am on the board of SOLID (Society of Living Intravenous Drugusers - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solidones/). SOLID does an ad hoc needle exchange in Victoria B.C. (without funding). I am also on the working group of Hepatitis C Council of British Columbia - http://www.bchepcouncil.ca/. I do get involved with poverty, homelessness and disAbility issues as I am also a woman with invisible disAbilities living in poverty.

Other than my involvement with my groups, I generally spend time reading, watching TV, working on the internet and sleeping. My cat and my turtle help to infuse some calm in an otherwise busy life.

Christopher Smith
Christopher Smith is a doctoral student in the York/Ryerson Joint Programme in Communication & Culture whose dissertation research involves a critical examination of the relationship between addiction, drug policy and urban redevelopment. A member of the Ontario Methadone Patients Advisory Group, Christopher has recently been involved in establishing one of the first Peer Support Worker projects at a private clinic-based methadone treatment center in downtown Toronto. Based on his involvement in both the Toronto Public Space Committee and the Anarchist Free University, his previous research involved an investigation of grassroots urban social movements and the shifting politics of public space. Balancing between community involvement and political activism, Christopher’s academic work is strongly informed by praxis.

Marliss Taylor
Marliss Taylor is the Program Manager of the Streetworks Program in Edmonton.. She received her Diploma in Nursing in 1982 and Degree in Nursing in 1992. After working for 11 years in adult and pediatric Intensive Care Units in Regina, Edmonton and San Antonio, she moved to the high Arctic. There she received her certificate in Advanced Practice Nursing and worked as a Nurse Practitioner in the communities of Kugluktuk and Nurse Manager in Gjoa Haven, NU. She has done contract work in Siberia. In 1995 she returned to Edmonton as the Program Manager of the Streetworks program and has worked in Harm Reduction for the past 11 years.

Where We Went

St. John's NL
St. John's, NL
Halifax, NS
Halifax, NS
Quebec, QC
Quebec, QC
Rouyn-Noranda, QC
Rouyn-Noranda, QC
Ottawa, ON
Ottawa, ON
Winnipeg, MB
Winnipeg, MB
Edmonton, AB
Edmonton, AB
Victoria, BC
Victoria, BC
Whitehorse, YT
Whitehorse, YT