Active projects

This project aims to subsidize core staff to develop and provide post-treatment addiction therapy, traditional healing, post-treatment culture-based programing, community reintegration transition care, outreach support, mentorship, and assistance navigating community, provincial and federal programs to Indigenous Peoples residing in PEI.

Project duration: December 4, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project would enable the Alex to expand their addiction care team with additional nurses, mental health clinicians, peer support workers and a peer support team lead to better focus on clients who use substances. Every person accessing The Alex be connected to supports (home visits, detox/treatment, follow-ups, housing) based on individually tailored treatment plans.

Duration of project: October 28, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will enhance the organization's existing service, Awasiw, which is a harm reduction drop-in space and the only service of its kind in Regina, serving people from nearby First Nations communities. The project will respond to Awasiw service gaps by expanding staffing, developing a peer training program for the outreach team, and collaborating with harm reduction specialists to bridge Awasiw clients to The Place of Hope.

Project duration: September 10, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will recruit, train, support and embed peer navigators within organizations in Penticton, Kamloops, and Vernon to transform substance use systems of care. Indigenous communities within these areas will also be engaged. ASK's program manager and social worker will work together to match the peer navigators with host organizations to best ensure peer safety and appropriate fit.

Project duration: December 3, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will increase knowledge among public health workers, healthcare workers, frontline service providers, and policy and program decision makers who provide services to people who use substances through a comprehensive collection of evidence informed tools, resources, and online/in-person capacity building activities.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2027

This project will explore alternative approaches to tobacco harm reduction and cessation among treatment resistant individuals by determining the effectiveness of offering a voucher for the purchase of either an e-cigarette or cytisine (a natural health product for smoking cessation) to individuals who received cessation treatment (nicotine replacement therapy plus behavioural counselling), but did not achieve abstinence at a six month follow-up.

Duration of project: September 30, 2024 to March 31, 2028

For this project, CAMH will partner with the Neighbourhood Group Community Services to develop a novel Intensive Recovery Discharge Treatment program to improve outcomes for adults following discharge from inpatient care for substance use disorder.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will expand access to Alcohol Use Disorder treatment for Indigenous adults (18-60) in Ontario by co-developing a culturally adapted alcohol withdrawal management intervention delivered virtually through telemedicine.

Project duration: November 20, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This initiative will create and test a virtual social support group to sustain and support women's recovery from tobacco use. By doing so, the organization aims to fill the gaps stemming from a lack of tailored programming, an under acknowledgement of social determinants of health, and the overlooking of sex and gender related factors affecting low-income women who smoke.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2028

The project will empower and support people with lived and living experience (PWLLE) and the broader social serving sector in Abbotsford to engage in meaningful roles that build skills and confidence by providing paid opportunities for PWLLE to support individuals in accessing a variety of substance use, mental health, housing, and nutrition supports.

Project duration: December 2, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project aims to increase contact and connection with people with lived and living experiences of substance use to provide harm reduction, overdose prevention, drug testing, outreach, education and a space that is safe. The project also helps people find and retain housing.

Project duration: December 5, 2023 to March 31, 2026

This project will deliver smoking cessation and harm reduction activities to 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals on a national level to stop smoking and/or adopt tobacco harm reduction behaviours. Activities will include the development of a website and delivery of a campaign, as well as providing peer-based motivational interviewing and counselling. The project will also establish a referral network of providers who can prescribe medications to assist with smoking cessation for interested participants, and a supplementary referral network for participants who wish to seek help with other substances like alcohol or drugs.

Project duration: October 9, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will provide an Intensive Case Management program for low-income individuals with a history of complex opioid and/or polysubstance use who are discharged from treatment settings including acute care. Individuals will be connected to Opioid Agonist Therapy (methadone, Buprenorphine, Sublocade, and Kadian) and other wraparound care such as primary care, mental health counselling, economic support, housing, and prenatal care.

Project duration: October 2, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will focus on developing organizational capacity across Canada to set up and deliver harm reduction services. The project provides supports, training and mentoring to front-line complex care organizations in five regional offices across Canada.

Project duration: September 18, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This initiative will offer assistance to women and gender diverse individuals who have been recently released from incarceration and use substances in Northern Alberta communities. Clients will have access to counselling, support and guidance from peer mentors, and referral services to treatment and aftercare supports.

Project duration: September 9, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will operate out of two transitional homes located in Thunder Bay, delivering harm reduction and post-treatment supports to empower women and gender diverse individuals to overcome the challenges of substance use, incarceration, homelessness, and reintegration into society.

Project duration: August 21, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project aims to support people who use substances, with a focus on newcomer populations in the Elmwood area of Winnipeg who have completed residential substance use treatment programs. The project offers group programming focused on substance use awareness for people who use drugs and their family and friends, coping mechanisms, dealing with trauma and stigma, and strategies for daily living. The project also provides case management through one-to-one counselling for individuals throughout their involvement with the Elmwood Community Resource Centre.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will conduct research on the extent of Indigenous incarceration in Newfoundland and Labrador and the prevalence of substance use and addictions among Indigenous individuals who have been incarcerated to help inform the policy process. The organization will then co-develop solutions to address barriers to reintegration and treatment with partners and with Indigenous people with lived and living experience.

Project duration: October 10, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will embed peer support workers across six mental health and substance use programs at Fraser Health (Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Mission, Surrey, Maple Ridge and New Westminster) to target support to four key populations: men in trades, South Asians, Indigenous peoples, and 2SLGBTQ+ persons. Peer support workers will offer in person support group services across the region, and one-to-one connection to clients to help with transitions to existing services.

Project duration: December 20, 2024 to March 31, 2028

The project will offer smoking cessation treatment and support to interested patients during clinical visits. It will also be in hospital settings where respiratory therapists will offer support and treatment to individuals while admitted. The program will be implemented in primary care clinics and at Stanton Hospital in Yellowknife.

Project duration: November 18, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will expand their existing national peer-led virtual overdose monitoring service, NORS, to support communities disproportionately impacted by substance use including those in contact with the criminal justice system, those transitioning to treatment, rural, Indigenous, and construction/service industry workers.

Project duration: July 5, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will provide a harm reduction focused, peer-led support group and drop-in and outreach programming for individuals living with addiction in York Region and Simcoe and Muskoka County. It will deliver evidence-based, client centered programming focused on harm reduction and safe usage. The project will support marginalized individuals who use substances with a focus on reintegration supports for individuals exiting correctional institutions, as well as racialized and, or marginalized populations.

Project duration: September 5, 2025 to March 31, 2028

This project aims to serve as a low-barrier access point and safe space that will offer a range of supports, including a drop-in/respite area, access to harm reduction services, supplies and education, primary health care, case management, counselling, cultural wellness programming, social navigation housing support, employment and food security support, and Indigenous traditional medicine care programming.

Project duration: October 15, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will provide support to Inuit youth (12 to 19 years old) residing in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut who are struggling with substance use and are at a higher risk of mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. The program will provide an array of services, including counseling, group therapy, and recreational activities, all aimed at empowering youth and helping them overcome their addiction issues.

Project duration: January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2028

This project will create a create a comprehensive staffing framework to add Residential Support Workers (RSWs) into the staffing model of Changes Recovery Homes in the Kenora region. RSWs will support clients and their families through relapse prevention education, peer support, helping families change their perspectives of the client in recovery, justice system navigation and advocacy, and other programming.

Project duration: November 5, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will create a coordinated one stop access point for vulnerable individuals and will provide them with access to basic needs items, harm reduction single use supplies, substance checking strips, wound care supplies and sharps disposal on site. People with lived and living experience (PWLLE) will support individuals through system navigation in conjunction with a variety of health care services, treatment, social services, justice involved services and other non for-profit agencies.

Project duration: December 31, 2024 to March 31, 2028

The project plans to hire an Indigenous Peer Support Worker to support Indigenous women enrolled in recovery programs at LIFE and will collaborate with staff, program directors, and participants to create culturally sensitive interventions, organize support groups, facilitate discussions, and offer one-on one peer counseling.

Project duration: September 24, 2024 to March 31, 2026

This project will expand access to harm reduction and substance use care in Renfrew County by designing and implementing an integrated mobile substance use service staffed by a community paramedic, a social worker, peer support worker and by Elders/Traditional Knowledge Keepers. The goal is to integrate community service providers to offer services and/or referrals for case management, system navigation, housing, opioid agonist therapy, wound care, drug testing, and virtual consultations.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2027

This project will deliver a series of workshops, training sessions and sharing circles on topics identified by its staff and clients including health, safer drug use and overdose prevention, access to supports and services, service navigation, financial management, cultural safety, mental health first aid, project management, advocacy, computer skills, budgeting, and group facilitation. It will also deliver a daily street outreach service to people who use substances and are experiencing homelessness, with an emphasis on those who are sleeping in city-sanctioned and unsanctioned encampments.

Project duration: January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2028

This project will expand the existing support groups with a specific focus on youth who have lost a family member or have a family member with lived and living experience, including efforts to develop Indigenous youth support groups. The youth groups would include an 8-session workshop exploring harm reduction, resources, self-care strategies, interpersonal relations, and communication with loved ones using substances. The project will also develop a phone service to provide support to navigate grief after losing a loved one to substance use.

Project duration: January 22, 2025 to March 31, 2028

This program will provide pre-release and community-based support to increase recovery capital, stability and overall health of recently incarcerated adults struggling with substance use and addiction challenges who are transitioning back into the community. One-on-one support, peer support groups, parole navigation, connection with community programs and services, and Elder facilitated safe spaces and cultural access will be available to clients.

Project duration: January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2028

This project will demonstrate the benefits of integrating traditional knowledge into smoking harm reduction programming through a coordinated education, awareness, and a train-the-trainer model. It will build upon, but not duplicate, existing smoking harm reduction programs and activities.

Project duration: December 2, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will encourage and prepare people with lived and living experience (PWLLE) to play an active role in their community, as well as become more involved in existing harm reduction councils, backpack programs (needle collection), and outreach programs. It will deliver workshops to PWLLE of past or current substance use in Nova Scotian cities of Truro, Amherst, New Glasgow, and three Indigenous communities of Sipekne'katik, Millbrook, and Pictou Landing.

Project duration: December 12, 2024 to March 31, 2026

This project will support youth aged 16-25 who are street-involved or experiencing homelessness, and who are at-risk of harms from substance use. Project activities include delivering information resources and harm reduction, and cessation supports as well as first-aid and overdose response training, and counselling services.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project aims to provide transitional care to adults who use drugs and who are currently experiencing sheltered or unsheltered homelessness or who are vulnerably housed (e.g. living in supportive housing) following discharge from the Ottawa Hospital. The project will co-design and pilot a person-centered, trauma-informed transitional care model at the Ottawa Hospital and with relevant community organizations which will include supporting the transfer of patients into the community.

Project duration: December 2, 2024 to March 31, 2027

This initiative will design, implement and evaluate a transitional service to improve substance use outcomes, mental health care and housing outcomes of incarcerated adults transitioning back into the Ottawa community.

Project duration: December 2, 2024 to March 31, 2027

This project will employ previous clients, who have had more than 6 months of substance free recovery, and who have completed the 90-day supportive recovery treatment program, as peer outreach workers to target the adult street entrenched and substance using population of Penticton and surrounding communities.

Project duration: November 15, 2024 to March 31, 2026

This project aims to build a network of people with lived and living experience of substance use and mental health challenges who are trained, equipped and supported to become peer support workers. These workers will have opportunities to build their own professional and leadership capacity to provide mental health and substance use supports to adults across Haliburton County.

Project duration: October 24, 2024 to September 30, 2026

This project aims to co-create and deliver with PWLLE, facilitated and self-paced online educational learning modules, and build up provincial networks to enhance the physical presence of the Recovery College in all BC communities.

Project duration: December 13, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will hire two Peer Support Workers within Red Fish Healing Centre and within Heartwood Centre for Women, who will be integrated into multi-disciplinary care teams and will provide practical non-clinical support services using a trauma informed, harm reduction and peer-to-peer approach in group and one-to-one support meetings.

Project duration: December 13, 2024 to March 31, 2028

Chaku-man

To Grow to Manhood

This project will provide mentorship, skill-building, knowledge sharing, and land-based programming for Indigenous men in rural and remote First Nations communities in BC, in four initial communities: Saik'uz, Splatsin, Lake Babine and Taku River. Indigenous way of knowing and evaluation methodologies will be woven through all aspects of program planning and implementation.

Project duration: December 20, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will increase bed capacity for gender specific peer-led sober housing for people aged 18-80 in need of transitional community support in Durham Region, including the addition of two women specific homes. It will offer gender specific aftercare in sober, peer-led transitional homes to help overcome the physical, mental, and social impacts of substance use disorder.

Project duration: September 17, 2024 to March 31, 2026

This project will support individuals who are exiting health, mental health and addictions, and/or treatment facilities with a focus on marginalized, street-entrenched, and at-risk youth (16 - 29 years old) struggling with mental health and/or addictions. The project will expand current street outreach services to provide more intensive case management supports to the hardest to reach individuals in Winnipeg.

Project duration: October 10, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will employ two part-time Community Ambassadors and one full-time Prevention Worker who will provide harm reduction education and awareness through outreach services, organized events, and training sessions to mitigate substance-related risk and reduce stigma. The target population is youth and young adults from 13 to 25, as well as individuals impacted by their own use or the substance use of family or friends.

Project duration: January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2028

This project targets adults with complex substance use disorders who are experiencing homelessness and living in S.H.A.R.P.'s permanent supportive care housing facilities. The program will provide substance use harms and risk reduction education, and intensive recovery supports and aftercare in a culturally safe way that considers the unique challenges of the largely Indigenous client base.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will provide tailored and culturally sensitive aftercare and reintegration services for the Indigenous community of Samson Cree Nation. Peer support programs and community engagement and collaboration with health services and community organizations will contribute to holistic and inclusive community reintegration.

Project duration: December 12, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will train and support people with lived and living experience (PWLLE) to work as front-line peer navigators for people who use substances and who are transitioning into community settings post release from the Regina Correction Centre or White Birch Remand Unit in Saskatchewan. Wrapround services will include referrals to clinical and non- clinical programming, legal aid, access to key programming for income assistance, housing supports, counselling, and assessment for opioid agonist therapies (OAT). POISE will be a collaboration between the Saskatchewan Health Authority and AIDS Programs South Saskatchewan.

Project duration: December 12, 2024 to March 31, 2027

This project aims to enhance existing leadership and networks through collaborative practices, building capacity, and generating additional opportunities for knowledge translation and engagement. The overarching goal is to tackle root causes, mitigate harm, and enhance access to evidence-based services for substance use.

Project duration: November 7, 2023 to March 31, 2026

This project aims to build the capacity of health care providers (HCPs) to deliver care to women of reproductive age with alcohol use disorder or who are using alcohol / nicotine, especially during pregnancy, and the postpartum period. Project activities will focus on developing clinical guidance for screening, brief intervention, management and referral for HCPs. during pregnancy.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2026

This project will provide training to women with lived and living experience of substance use in Saint John, St. Stephen, and Quispamsis, NB, to provide community members with substance use health information; mentorship to women seeking recovery; and deliver prevention, harm reduction and recovery initiatives. The project will also include access to individual therapy and an ongoing wellness education program.

Project duration: October 18, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This initiative aims to provide targeted training, foster the establishment and enhancement of peer-led networks, and create open-source resource toolkits for sustained impact and accessibility in supporting the wellness and resilience of both the frontline workforce and people with living lived experience.

Project duration: October 1, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This program will integrate people with lived and living experience into hospital care teams as peer workers to act as a bridge between patients and their health care teams. The peer workers will also provide individual and group-based peer support for patients in emergency departments and inpatient units across Hamilton.

Project duration: November 15, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will implement a new model of addiction care, which aims to increase the capacity of health professionals to provide on-demand addiction care by operationalizing almost one hundred new addiction treatment beds at St. Paul's Hospital over the next three years. The model also reorganizes and coordinates existing clinical services to ensure individuals with a substance use disorder can be seamlessly supported at every phase of their recovery journey.

Project duration: December 4, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will deliver a harm reduction program that provides client-focused care to adults with an intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) in the Toronto region, North Bay, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Kenora / Rainy River who are involved with the justice system and experiencing substance use disorder. Project activities will be delivered by a harm reduction team and will be supported by people with lived and living experience.

Project duration: December 12, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project emphasizes a collaborative effort among community partners to increase capacity for delivering harm reduction and recovery services through the employment of people with lived and living experience.

Project duration: September 23, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will provide community transition services for incarcerated men with substance use disorders or released from Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre (VIRCC). The peer outreach worker will develop an individualized treatment plan which includes post-treatment supports such as housing, addictions counselling, medical support, harm reduction and other supports.

Project duration: October 7, 2024 to March 31, 2026

This initiative will create peer developed educational modules, manuals, online and in-person training resources to support the training and education of PWLLE working to address substance use in the community. In year 2 of the project, the resources will be rolled out to community partners for them to use with their staff.

Project duration: November 7, 2024 to March 31, 2026

This project will provide tools, resources, and expertise to aid those across Ontario to design, execute, and evaluate drug checking programs locally. Toronto's Drug Checking will act as a central repository for data generated from checking samples by programs participating in the network and will incorporate these data into its public-facing monitoring and surveillance tools.

Project duration: August 25, 2023 to June 30, 2026

University of Calgary

Incorporating peers as recovery coaches into Emergency Departments to provide support and facilitate management of substance use disorders while enabling transfer to community settings in Alberta

This project will create a Recovery Coach Network (RCN) supporting persons with substance use concerns in transitioning between acute care and community care. Recovery Coaches (RCs) are persons with lived experience of substance use experienced in using a recovery model to assist clients to overcome barriers to healthcare access and facilitate timely access to care.

Project duration: October 11, 2024 to March 31, 2028

Multiple substances

Calgary, Alberta

2,456,762

University Health Network

Enhancing Surgical Care: A Novel Tobacco Cessation Program

This initiative will use electronic health records to deliver a virtual smoking cessation program to adults who smoke tobacco and are scheduled for an elective surgical procedure at the University Health Network in Toronto. Surgical patients will be sent automated messages including educational information, links to e-learning modules and online smoking treatment programming and nicotine replacement therapy.

Project duration: October 15, 2024 to March 31, 2026

Tobacco

Toronto, Ontario

196,656

This project will develop and increase access to culturally-informed models of alcohol harm reduction reflective of Indigenous cultural diversity and create evaluation frameworks to guide Indigenous communities and Nations to report on the impacts of alcohol harm reduction programs. The evaluation framework will be piloted with land-based teachings and healing camps within Indigenous focused alcohol harm reduction programs in Victoria, BC and Calgary, AB. In parallel, the project will also build capacity within host organizations by supporting training for Indigenous people with lived and living experience (PWLLE) on research and evaluation.

Project duration: October 15, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will update and expand the previously SUAP-funded Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE 2.0) project, which characterizes and systematically evaluates the degree of implementation of provincial, territorial, and federal alcohol policies across 11 evidence-based alcohol policy domains.

Project duration: March 24, 2022 to March 31, 2023

This initiative will integrate People with Lived and Living Experience (PWLLE) into drug-checking initiatives by training them in drug-checking technologies to enable them to implement drug-checking initiatives and training programs in participating harm reduction and public health centres in Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

Project duration: November 5, 2024 to March 31, 2028

This project will provide transition supports to people who use substances in Old Crow, a remote fly-in Indigenous community in northern Yukon. The program will engage citizens with lived or living experience to provide more consistent care directly within the community, and will increase the use of culturally safe and inclusive programming and services.

Project duration: January 27, 2025 to March 31, 2027