Due to a lack of funding, a community harm reduction outreach group in Sudbury will lose four harm reduction workers, and judging by the data, a successful program.
Réseau ACCESS Network’s peer engagement program focuses on people who use substances. Trained Réseau staff would offer members of the substance-using community harm-reduction tools, as well as first aid instruction — especially for treating toxic drug poisonings due to adulterants in the supply — but also, the program trained volunteers with lived experience to help others in their communities, and potentially, to seek employment.
“For every 911 call about an overdose, there are many that are being reversed by the community,” Kaela Pelland, director of peer engagement for the program.
People with lived or living experience would begin as liaisons for the others in the vulnerable community, not only handing out harm reduction supplies, but also, communicating on the types of substances that may be circulating. Though Sudbury media, including Sudbury.com, routinely publish drug warnings from the Community Drug Strategy, it’s not always the most effective route.
Pelland told Sudbury.com that this information can be spread through the community by peer engagement workers, who have built a trust with substance users.
Pelland will lose her job as a result of the lack of funding. She said the program was a means of recovery for some, a way to help, to feel a sense of pride; peer engagement staff also speak of their experiences to local businesses, offering educational opportunities, and they were participants in the city’s opioid summit, held Dec. 7-8, 2023.
It was a way to gain work experience and potentially move to another stage in life, including employment.
“It's funny, because every time I hear that rhetoric of getting a job, I think of this opportunity, and now, it’s gone,” said Pelland.
Many volunteers for the program later became paid staff, and were training on other aspects of office work; many received work references to gain other employment. Now, said Pelland, those opportunities will be largely unavailable.
While there is still one peer engagement position funded through 2027 by the Public Health Agency of Canada, the rest of the program was funded by Health Canada's Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP). SUAP provides time-limited funding, and even with an extension given due to the pandemic, that funding will run out March 29; same as with The Spot, Sudbury’s Supervised Consumption site, which will shut down permanently due to lack of funding.
Pelland told Sudbury.com that in the last 12 months, Réseau ACCESS Network has been able to support: more than 51 people in overdose recognition and response, communicable disease control, harm reduction, and peer support training; more than 34 people in support group and community discussions; more than 21 people working harm reduction street outreach; more than 18 people in job shadowing opportunities (reception work, harm reduction etc) and more than 17 people working harm reduction street in-reach.
“These numbers are rough as the work is continuing,” said Pelland. “The dedicated team refuses to quit on the community, and similar to The Spot, and SACY, are here until the bitter end.”
When Réseau learned the funding would not be renewed, they received a funding extension to allow for early morning harm reduction shifts, to prepare their community for the end of services. “With the temporary increase in financial support from SUAP, we were able to implement this for the month of March,” said Pelland. “Without an extension of the project and its staff, it's unclear if Réseau ACCESS Network will be able to continue filling this gap.”
In the first two week of March, 182 connections were made for harm reduction supplies, 40 naloxone kits were distributed, and more than 30 referrals were made to places like the Réseau ACCESS Network, The Spot, the Elgin Street Mission, Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), recovery programs, the Homelessness Network, Health Sciences North, transitional housing, and the Go-Give Project, said Pelland.
“But this is only part of the great engagements,” she said. “What data and numbers don't show is the feeling of safety that is created, the pathways to other services and treatment, community connections and building, the support and the shouldering eachother up that we are all doing in the face of so much adversity.”
She said despite all the hardship, she is honoured to do the work.
“People who use drugs who are resistant, resilient and persistent,” said Pelland. “The members are the reason to continue pushing and amplifying the needs of the community.”
However, Pelland said the communal grief has been immense.
“Grief for the team losing their funding, for the community workers and peers losing opportunities, and for the entire Sudbury community,” she said. “With the loss of SACY, the impending loss of The Spot and the other harm reduction programs being cut or underfunded, Sudbury will see an increase in suffering, public substance use, and tragically, death. Preventable death. This fear and grief exist with us every day.”
Jenny Lamothe covers vulnerable and marginalized communities for Sudbury.com.
