If the conversation about harm reduction and homelessness doesn’t include people with lived experience, it’s not getting the full picture of how help could be provided, says Ryan Beardy.
The justice advocate and public speaker was one of the guest speakers at this weekend's screening of Love in the Time of Fentanyl at the Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre.
After the film, DIY Community Health Timmins volunteers, guest speakers Beardy and Dr. Andrea Sereda, and community members talked about what unhoused people and those using drugs need to be safer.
The film directed by Colin Askey documents the work in harm reduction done by community members in the East Hastings neighbourhood in Vancouver, B.C.
“It really does a great job of not only capturing what’s going on exactly with the overdose and the poison drug crisis, but it shows how people with lived experience are really at the centre of saving lives,” said Jason Sereda, one of the DIY Community Health organizers. “We want to get people thinking about different ideas for Timmins and ways we can expand that spectrum of services for people.”
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Beardy, who works with youth in Winnipeg through Gang Action Interagency Network says that changing the common narrative about these issues can help people access new opportunities.
“I work to exit youth from gangs, which sounds far off from the subject today, but when you think about a traditional relationship between a gang member and a person using drugs, what does that look like?” said Beardy. ”In Winnipeg, we were able to flip the script and so now we're working to exit youth from gangs while employing them in harm reduction.”
People with lived experiences, he said, have valuable insights.
“I often say that those who have faced the darkness can come back to lead others to light, so I’m hoping that this can inspire some more programming, and maybe somebody to just stand up and try to make a difference," he said.
Andrea Sereda is a physician with London InterCommunity Health Centre and one of the people who started its safe supply program.
“What I do is I prescribe pharmaceutical grade opioid pills that people use instead of using the dangerous fentanyl street supply,” she said. “After a year or so, and we’re seven years into this program, we started to see that people got better in every way, their mental health, their physical health, their housing, their social health. So my ‘a-ha!’ moment was realizing that perhaps it’s not the drugs causing health and social consequences to people who use them.”
She provided statistics from their program, indicating that 35 per cent of participants stopped using intravenous drugs, as well as lowering their clients’ need for healthcare services by 50 per cent.
“The solutions, and I’ll put air quotes around that, have primarily come from the top down, from physicians, health professionals, politicians, other leaders in the community,” she said. “They’re designed based on those folks’ perspectives and experiences and how they think the best outcome for people using fentanyl might look like, as opposed to really exploring the reality of people who are dependent on fentanyl.”
Andrea said that doesn’t always address the actual issues people using drugs face.
“The biggest barrier is that we’re not talking to and listening to the right people to get solutions,” she said.
Conversations about community safety need to include everyone in the community, said Jason.
“We want to get people thinking about innovative ideas, ways that we can expand the spectrum of services in our community and really centre that discussion around harm reduction and lived experience,” he said. “We want to highlight the value and everything people with lived experience bring to an organization.”
He said that DIY Community Health Timmins is moving forward and looking to elect a board of governors soon, but they want to be very intentional about that growth.
“We’re getting a lot of interest from people looking to join the team so now we’re dividing up roles, thinking about the best way to move forward and really making sure we’re centering people with lived experience in every decision we make,” he said. “So it can be a little bit of a slower process in doing that, but we think it’ll make us stronger in the end.”
During this period, the team in Timmins is working with the Give-Go Project in Sudbury.
Anyone who would like to get involved is encouraged to reach out to Jason Sereda at [email protected].
