Street Degree Manual Vancouver Coalition Against Prohibition and Overdose https://www.cpddw.ca/education

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, the Portland Hotel Society, the SRO Collaborative’s Tenant Overdose Response Organizer Project, 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.

Spotting: How to Spot Someone so they Never Have to Use Alone: Stimulus Connect 15- CAPUD Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs Comic, video, webinar

Webinar: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=255497436394204

Join us on October 20 for the launch of an educational animation about spotting - an overdose prevention method done by phone or video call. This new resource from CAPUD is available in both official languages and provides an step by step guide about spotting. Meet the team that created the animation and learn more about how spotting may help your community. Stimulus is a program of the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs (CAPUD) Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC) and by registering for Stimulus Connect you have consented to receive future email communications from CDPC.

Comic: Spotting-EN.pdf - Google Drive (comic of ‘how to spot someone’ that can be printed, shared out on social media, messengered/texted to people etc)

Video: How to Spot Someone so They Never Use Alone - YouTube (~ 7 minute video cartoon- how to spot someone-- shared out on social media, messengered/texted to people etc)

Drug Policy 101: How To Be In The Room: A guidebook preparing people who use(d) drugs for engaging in drug policy processes

Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs; Touesnard, N; Bonn, M

https://zenodo.org/record/5155903#.YWiRkLjMJPY

This guide is for PWUD who want to become involved with policy and decision-making processes. If you are new to this process, know it can be rewarding, exciting, emotionally difficult, confusing, and intimidating. If you feel this way or are overwhelmed, know that most PWUD, as well as decision-makers, have felt this way at one time or another. Remember, your personal experience provides you with a unique and valued opinion, so do not hold back if you have a question you feel is relevant. You were asked to participate so you could share your valued knowledge and expertise based on your experience. Many of us remember the awkward feeling at our first several meetings with not just politicians or bureaucrats, but with the many stakeholders that work and engage with PWUD.

Being in these meetings, whatever form they take, is what we refer to as being in the room (ITR). It is where you have an opportunity to influence policy, help transform the system, and advocate for change using your personal experience and the experiences of those around you to bring forth a better future for PWUD.

As PWUD we need to support each other to make positive change. Many of the current and future changes in drug policy at all levels of government have been initiated and directed by PWUD and the groups they represent. It is reassuring to know that in Canada, PWUD have the power to create real change on both the smallest and largest of scales, which truly highlights that every contribution counts. Those of us ITR have a unique position to not only speak our minds and share our wisdom, but to represent the thousands of voices of our friends and family that have been silenced due to misguided drug laws and insufficient knowledge. This means that being prepared to discuss the issue(s) at hand is essential for achieving successful change for your community. This guide is a resource that will help you be prepared when ITR. So be proud of surviving the adversity you have faced and know that THIS GUIDE IS FOR YOU!

#PeerLife - A Day in the Life of a Peer (10 ½ minute video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcMBpGJqwGU&t=3s

Peers/ experiential workers, i.e. individuals with lived/living experience of substance use, are important service providers and first responders that play a crucial role in supporting individuals that use substances and in preventing overdoses. Despite the important work they do, there is lack of awareness on the role played by peers/ experiential workers. This video highlights the work done by peers/ experiential workers and the challenges they face in their role. This video was created as part of the Peer2Peer (P2P) project which aims to identify, implement and evaluate peer/ experiential worker-led support interventions that would be valuable and effective for peers/ experiential workers.

Strategies for Scaling Up Naloxone Distribution (Secondary Naloxone Distribution) 1 ½ hour webinar video

Wed April 21, 2021 RTI International-INOD Study/National Harm Reduction Coalition Webinars

Join Barrot Lambdin & Lynn Wenger, RTI International; Paul LaKosky, Dave Purchase Project; Emy Martinez, IDEA Exchange; Sara Bowen-Lasisi, Phoenix Center, & Braunz Courtney, HEPPAC for a conversation about how they have implemented high saturation models of naloxone distribution in their communities. This panel will discuss recently released data from published studies, opportunities to improve the reach of SSP-based naloxone distribution, and examples of how that’s happened on the ground.

On Demand Webinar Strategies for Getting Naloxone to Rural & Suburban Regions

Aug 27, 2020 RTI International-INOD Study/National Harm Reduction Coalition Webinars

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/rec/WN_qdvpKzz8QvWIB-c_kNNPeg?meetingId=z90rNOjA129OHomd40zEWYQIBYf7T6a80SBIrqEKzhyLYyGy2VrK9ne8lY_vi13f&playId=&action=play

National Harm Reduction Coalition staff, Kacey Byczek and Dana KurzerYashin will host, and be joined by guests Chelsi Cheatom (Trac-B Exchange), Philomena Kebec (Bad River Needle Exchange), Tina Wolf (CASJ Long Island), and Sarah Ziegenhorn (Iowa HRC). Panelists will share challenges and successes doing naloxone distribution to difficult-to-reach rural and suburban populations and will discuss overcoming barriers such as concerns around privacy and confidentiality, lack of transportation, and isolation. We will also discuss how COVID has exacerbated some of these issues, and how strategies such as mail-order fit into this new future.

TAKING BACK WHAT’S OURS! – Episode 5. United States of America (1/2 hour video) TAKING BACK WHAT’S OURS! – Episode 5. United States - YouTube

Activists from the United States look back on the history of the movement of people who use drugs in the fifth episode of the documentary series produced by INPUD and Drug reporter.

In the country where the drug war was born, people who use drugs have fought for their dignity and human rights for decades. They have achieved the legalisation of needle and syringe exchanges in many states, successfully campaigned for hepatitis C treatment, and fought hard against the extremely harsh criminalisation of drug use around the US. In the US last year 70 thousand people died of overdose, and it is activists who, with the leadership of Dan Bigg, have made naloxone widely available. There is even an underground safer consumption facility somewhere in the United States, which is saving lives at this very moment.

In today’s episode you can witness the oral history of the users’ movement, as told by Louise Vincent from the Urban Survivors Union (USU), Hollis, who for a long time worked at the San Francisco Drug Users Union, and from Robert Suarez, who is a long-time activist at VOCAL-NY and USU.

How to Support Peer-Led Initiatives (video)

During the past 5 years, peers or people with lived and living experience of drug use have been on the frontlines of the overdose and drug poisoning epidemic. At a time when public service is stepping down, peers are stepping up to save lives and support their communities. They do this without any employment protections, support, or recognition of their positions as frontline responders. So how can community organizations equitably support and empower them to lead and continue their vital work? In this webinar, presenters from the Peer2Peer Project (led by the BC Center for Disease Control (BCCDC), Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR), SOLID Outreach, RainCity Housing) and BEAP: Business Engagement Ambassadors Project (developed by Drug War Survivors Abbotsford, in partnership with Matsqui-Abbotsford Impact Society) discuss what the components of successful peer-led initiatives are, how organizations can support peers, and why peer leadership is the first and foremost essential practice for overdose and drug poisoning prevention and response.

Safer Supply 101 — An Introduction, Orientation and Backgrounder Corey Ranger Safer Program AVI

Recording available soon https://www.nss-aps.ca/en/resources

Thursday October 14 @ 9:00 am - 10:30 am PST

Join Corey Ranger from the SAFER program at AVI in Victoria BC for an introduction about safer supply, what it is, what it isn’t, where it comes from, and where medical models fall on the continuum of safer supply. AVI Health and Community Services.

Safe Supply and Decriminalization of Drug Use A Panel Talk

October 8, 2021

Decriminalize Now: Akia's Story is a short, first-personal narrative film about the drug poisoning crisis — and daring to dream of a better future for people who use drugs. We can get there by rethinking repressive drug policy, in Canada and beyond.

This Stimulus Connect will present the findings from the CAPUD Best Practices in Meaningful and Respectful Engagement of People Who Use Drugs (Best Practices Project), led by the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs (CAPUD) and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. We will share the study findings, discuss the implications for organizations, and encourage self-reflection and self-assessment on the extent to which best practices have and should be implemented. Participants will be encouraged to thoughtfully consider the (mis)match between their good intentions, and the lived realities of PWUD who either work in harm reduction organizations, or attend conferences/meetings. 6/24/21

Harm reduction is a critical movement tool used for generations to create change, build long-term relationships, and support healing while working to reduce harm in our community.

Shira Hassan, a long-time harm reduction and transformative justice practitioner, shares her own experiences with harm reduction as a young person in the sex trade to her recent adventures as an instructor of one of social work's most sought after courses (University of Chicago and University of Washington, Seattle).

This instructional and participatory session will provide an overview of harm reduction principles, values and practice - and how it intersects with transformative justice work within a social work context. There is no justice that leaves out people in the sex trade & street economy, drug users and street based young people.

Shira offers her reflections, cautions and thoughts about the possibilities for the future of harm reduction as an abolitionist strategy. Sheila Vakharia, Deputy Director of the Department of Research and Academic Engagement for the Drug Policy Alliance, will introduce the webinar and moderate an interactive audience discussion at the close of the evening.

Social work, historically and today, has been deeply embedded in systems of carceral control. With social work's legacy of ties to policing and oppressive family regulation through the child welfare system, the social work community is actively imagining and working towards a social work rooted in abolition, turning to traditions of resistance that also characterize its history. This webinar is a 2nd in a series on Abolitionist Social Work organized by the Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work (NAAASW) in partnership with Haymarket Book, challenging carceral social work through the development and practice of an abolitionist social work.

The Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work (NAAASW) is a group of social workers from different parts of the U.S. building a year-long initiative to support abolitionist work in the field of social work. The initiative includes ongoing political education, research, knowledge generation around carceral and abolition social work, developing an online hub of abolitionist social work resources, and broader organizing and advocacy efforts to build abolitionist ideas and practices into social work.

Paul DeRienzo & Joan Moossy interview advocates for VOCAL , (Voices of Community Advocates and Leaders), New York Users Union is a membership led organization of Drug Users, those who identify with drug users and Allies.

VOCAL organizes with in the "Users Movement " for Human Rights, HIV/HCV access to health care , housing and harm reduction.

Louie Jones founder of VOCAL works as its Advocacy Coordinator.

Dimitri Mobengo Mugianis is a founding member of VOCAL and is a Ibogaine provider and Bwiti Initiate.

Both Drug User Activists address a wide range of issues that impact the lives of drug users, their loved ones and families in especially communities of color. Some of the issues covered in the Let Them Talk Program's interview aired on April 22nd dealt with ; needle exchange , the Rocker fellow drug laws, the war on drugs , the prison industrial complex , so called addictions to heroin, cocaine , crack use and methamphetamine, as well as , VOCAL's solidarity action for the drug users of Thailand who are being systematically executed. VOCAL is a member of "INPUD , International People Who Use Drugs.

Sam Friedman, PhD, is the Director of the Institute of Infectious Disease Research at National Development and Research Institutes. He is writing a book on capitalist structures, contradictions, and struggles as they have shaped the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In this talk, he considers how the contradictions, primarily one-way class war, and misery produced by the last half century in the United States have helped produce the current opioid and overdose epidemic. He also discusses possible ways to undo these contradictions and miseries and thereby end not only the overdose epidemic but also the human dilemmas in which it is based.

Jesse and @deejayNDN are joined by award winning podcast producer and activist, Garth Mullins

Solidarity Talk 7/21/2020: Trey Agnew Mgr OPS & Tara Taylor Board Co- chair OPS talk with Vikki about Canada’s first Overdose Prevention Site, honouring that ‘peers’ do the heavy lifting in the opioid catastrophe, deaths by bad drug policy & creative resistance.

Solidarity Talk with powerful community organizer @ZoeDodd who is connected to

@TorontoOPS and was one of founders of Toronto's response to the opioid catastrophe. Reflections from Tara Taylor DTES activist in Vancouver, and organizer with OPS Overdose Prevention Society Vancouver.

Interview with Janice Abbott on Sister Space

This tent saves lives- how to open an Overdose Prevention Site (attached)

https://www.capud.ca/capud-resources/this-tent-saves-lives

Welcome to an important social movement to change drug policy and to ensure the human rights of

people who use drugs. To learn more about the liberation of people who use illegal drugs: Capud.ca Vandu.org If you’re reading this document, you’ve probably gotten sick and tired of watching people you care about die of overdose, which is a preventable cause of death. This document provides an overview of what an overdose prevention site is, the supplies and materials needed to run one, and a basic 1-point outline on everything needed to safely operate an overdose prevention site. It was written by a team from many walks of life: frontline workers, people who use drugs, lawyers, nursing, and public health. Most importantly, it was written from life experience as each author has organized or worked inside an overdose prevention site.

SPLITTING & SHARING IN OPS/SCS PROTOCOL TEMPLATE

Does your OPS/SCS have a committee of people who use drugs (PWUD)

advising on policy development? If yes, now is the time to consult with them on

adapting a splitting and sharing protocol. If not, now is the time to invest in meaningful & equitable engagement that centers the perspectives of PWUD

Ontario Harm Reduction Network Engaging People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) to Build Organizational Capacity - OHRN Webinar NK

Recorded March 6, 2020 (2 hours)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6elqzRXgBNs&list=PL1TOM5scK-qU8Nb3TLf2zqD4IymL1ejZo

In this webinar, we will explore key principles and practical tips for the meaningful engagement of People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) and provide participants with relevant resources on the topic. • Does your organization actively work with People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) in policy development, program design and service delivery? • Are you interested in learning ways of meaningfully including of PWUD? • Want to learn how involving PWUD can lead to relevant services and greater engagement with service users, while building capacity of all involved? The webinar is co-facilitated by the Ontario Harm Reduction Network (OHRN) and people with living experience/expertise (PWLE) of drug use. Certificates of participation will be provided by request. See our website for details: www.ohrn.org/certificates All content was current as of recording date: March 6, 2020. See http://bit.ly/pwud-resources to download the resources shared during the webinar.