198 search results for
Mental health and substance use
Recommendation 5:
All government actors and health care providers must recognize the specific and indispensable expertise of people with lived experience. Increase peer-run and peer-delivered services and peer-support positions within government services by:
- developing a provincial advisory board of people with lived experience of homelessness for BC Housing;
- establishing provincial best practices for engaging people with lived experience of poverty, homelessness, and substance use in service delivery modelled on GIPA (Greater Involvement of People living with HIV/AIDS), MIPA (Meaningful Involvement of People Living with HIV), and NAUWU (Nothing About Us Without Us) principles;
- collaborating with peer-led organizations to audit all provincial services (hospital, health, income assistance, shelter, housing) to identify and fund opportunities for peer engagement in service provision and planning; and
- developing a model for peer-involvement in the design and execution of homeless counts.
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Recommendation 31:
All government actors and health care providers must recognize the specific and indispensable expertise of people with lived experience. Increase peer-run and peer-delivered services and peer-support positions within government services by:
- developing a provincial advisory board of people with lived experience of homelessness for BC Housing;
- establishing provincial best practices for engaging people with lived experience of poverty, homelessness, and substance use in service delivery modelled on GIPA (Greater Involvement of People living with HIV/AIDS), MIPA (Meaningful Involvement of People Living with HIV), and NAUWU (Nothing About Us Without Us) principles;
- collaborating with peer-led organizations to audit all provincial services (hospital, health, income assistance, shelter, housing) to identify and fund opportunities for peer engagement in service provision and planning; and
- developing a model for peer-involvement in the design and execution of homeless counts.
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Recommendation 17:
All CLBC and Mental health assessments must be completed prior to youth aging out. Youth report delays on receiving assessments during the pandemic, which will affect the level of support they receive in the future.
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Recommendation 30:
Address the health and safety harms associated with substance use and provide equitable access to all forms of health care for those who use substances.
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Recommendation 5:
A Provincial Policy on harm reduction which should include:
- a directive to deprioritize simple possession of controlled substances and an overview of the harms of confiscating substances (including alcohol) from people with addictions and limited resources;
- a directive to never confiscate new or used syringes, naloxone, and other harm reduction and overdose prevention supplies;
- a statement that harm reduction supplies, whether new or used, are not a basis for search or investigation; and
- a directive that local police forces work with service providers to develop bubble zones around safe consumption sites, overdose prevention sites, and other harm reduction sites, taking into consideration policing practices that may deter access including visible presence, arrests in close proximity, undercover operations in and near, and surveillance of people using the service.
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Recommendation 4:
A Provincial Policy governing police interactions with intoxicated persons, in partnership with people who use drugs and people living with alcoholism, and fund the implementation of the Policy. This Policy should make it clear that:
- police interventions with a person who is intoxicated must be minimally impairing on liberty and officers must make the security of the person (health) the paramount consideration in determining whether to apprehend an individual;
- city cells are not the appropriate place to bring an intoxicated person for their own safety or other therapeutic reasons. Alternatives to detention including, but not limited to, sobering centres, hospitals, and other community-based options must be made available; and
- where an intoxicated person must be brought into cells, their health care needs shall be paramount and health care visits will be mandatory.
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Recommendation 15:
- Ensures an Indigenous lens and leadership role in developing a culturally responsive plan to support Indigenous programs and governments.
- Ensure adequate mental health, substance-use, life-skills, employment and education supports for youth.
- A strategy to incentivize coordinated supports at local levels.
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Recommendation 14:
- Assess current access statistics and ensure timely access to specialized therapy and victim services for children and youth who experience physical and sexualized violence, and other childhood experiences associated with later youth homelessness.
- Explore the concept of “duty to assist” as a rights-based approach to ending youth homelessness; investigate prevention legislation such as in Wales where there can be a duty to assist youth, likely to be homeless within 56 days, to secure accommodations.
- Prevent youth homelessness by reducing system discharges into homelessness by coordinating ministries at the provincial level and by bridging transitions from foster-care/provincial care, justice, hospitals, treatment facilities, and mental-health systems.
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