Government of Canada announces more than $20 million to help address harms related to substance use across British Columbia and the Prairies

Alberta (total of $3,971,099)

Acahkawsis (star child) program
Fort McMurray 468 First Nation – Fort McMurray, AB
$141,021 added to the existing $599,338 already provided by SUAP to develop an Indigenous-led in-community treatment program. The program will be based on traditional values that allow individuals to recover on their traditional lands and within Fort McMurray 468 First Nation, and the local Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. The program will employ intensive case management to provide wraparound support and facilitate multi-level interventions through therapy sessions and teaching by local Elders. The goal is to develop a model that could be used across Canada.
Theme: Indigenous
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Boyle Street Non-Residential Managed Alcohol Program
The Boyle Street Service Society – Edmonton, AB
$461,832 added to the existing $592,899 already provided by SUAP for its managed alcohol program (MAP) in Edmonton, Alberta. MAP is a treatment option for people living with severe alcohol use disorder, which can help stabilize and prevent health and social harms by providing controlled amounts of alcohol at specific times to help manage alcohol withdrawal symptoms. The goals of the project are to reduce the amount of non-beverage alcohol (e.g., mouthwash, rubbing alcohol) or illegally produced alcohol consumed by participants and to provide a safer alcohol alternative to improve the overall health and quality of life of participants. This approach aims to reduce the use of emergency services and potential involvement of participants in the criminal justice system. The project will also help participants set and meet goals and improve housing access and retention for those struggling with illicit alcohol use.
Theme: Alcohol
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Integrated Mobile Drug Checking and Peer Navigation Pilot for Calgary, Alberta
Alberta Alliance who Educates and Advocates Responsibly Society – Calgary, AB
$118,639 added to the existing $672,288 already provided by SUAP. This project will pilot Calgary's first peer-led mobile drug checking service, with connection to wraparound mental and physical health supports. This will enable connections with hard-to-reach at-risk populations using substances; testing street drugs to identify substances of concern; and sharing of information on the toxic drug supply with key systems actors and decision-makers. The additional funding will also facilitate connections to peer support staff, which are trained to operate the site and have an understanding on how to analyze the compounds within the substances.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Chemsex Education Project
SafeLink Alberta Society – Calgary, AB
$21,031 added to the existing $108,159 already provided by SUAP to advance policies and practices to help service providers, including health, social, and harm reduction professionals, work together effectively in order to provide tools to reduce harms related to substance use and mental health within the gay/bisexual/men community. The service providers will receive a training curriculum and will provide pre and post feedback regarding its content and delivery.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

CUPS' Peer-Driven Enhanced OAT Program
CUPS Calgary Society – Calgary, AB
$72,040 added to the existing $1,141,921 already provided by SUAP to expand CUPS' existing Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT) program based in Calgary with a new, lower barrier mobile service that can provide OAT services and access to peer recovery coaches. The target population is individuals 18 years and older experiencing economic insecurity, especially those experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. The project aims to connect with the hard-to-reach opioid users, who tend to face barriers to recovery.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Journeys - Addiction Supports for Women
McMan Youth, Family and Community Services Association – Calgary, AB
$543,249 added to the existing $900,014 already provided by SUAP to provide addictions supports and wraparound services to women who require support with their substance use issues while await long-term residential addictions treatment at the Aventa Center of Excellence for Women with Addictions, a residential treatment centre in Calgary. The primary focus is on recovery and sobriety related to the use of alcohol, but clients may also seek services for crystal meth, fentanyl or other substances.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

NAM Therapeutic Communities for Healthy Families
Northeast Addiction and Mental Health Centre for Holistic Recovery – Calgary, AB
$145,800 added to the existing $583,201 already provided by SUAP to provide integrated health, housing, and supportive services to Calgary's vulnerable South Asian population, including recovery coaching for people who use drugs. Families supported by this project include immigrants, those who have a background of multi-generational poverty, or who experience homelessness or housing insecurity while experiencing substance use and/or co-occurring disorders.
Theme: Treatment
Funding Envelope: Amendment

National Overdose Response Service (NORS)
Grenfell Ministries - NORS – Calgary, AB
$955,080 added to the existing $1,922,760 already provided by SUAP. Grenfell Ministries, in partnership with the Universities of Calgary and Alberta and BRAVE technology co-op, have created a toll-free National Overdose Response Service (NORS) for individuals who use drugs alone. The portion of the initiative funded by SUAP will serve to enhance this service by building out infrastructure to enable BRAVE to support NORS end-to-end, with a custom-designed system. This funding will also support the development of a variety of knowledge products, including guidelines for using technology-based harm reduction services which will be developed in conjunction with the Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse (CRISM).
Theme: Community-based
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Reducing long-term opioid use in surgical patients through more effective management of chronic post-surgical pain
Alberta Health Services – Edmonton, AB
$1,146,909 over 11 months to help reduce opioid use by improving post-surgical pain case management and mitigating chronic post-surgical pain. This project will develop a screening tool to help identify patients at risk of developing chronic pain and to help improve pain outcomes. This project will roll out at hospitals across Alberta and will target 7,500 patients.
Theme: Regional
Funding Envelope: B2022

Substance Use Capacity Building Project
Safelink Alberta Society – Calgary, AB
$145,470 added to the existing $290,486 already provided by SUAP to enhance pathways to care and reduce barriers to social and health services and supports for people who use drugs (PWUD). This project will target stakeholders involved in providing services to PWUD (such as front-line staff, leadership in health and social service programs and organizations) in Calgary and Southeastern Alberta.
Theme: Harm reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

The Blood Tribe Harm Reduction Project
Kainai Food Bank Society - Standoff, AB
$220,028 added to the existing $935,117 already provided by SUAP to train local people with lived experience to become peer support workers providing trauma-informed care support rooted in the Blackfoot culture. Programming will be evidence-based and patient-centered with an emphasis on harm reduction, peer and elder support, and connection to community resources.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

British Columbia (total of $11,220,668)

ANKORS Rise Up: Harm Reduction Education, Peer Leadership and Health Navigation
ANKORS AIDS Network, Outreach & Support Society – Nelson, BC
$397,985 added to the existing $963,985 already provided by SUAP to scale-up the response to the overdose crisis in rural and underserved communities in the East and West Kootenay region. The project provides harm reduction and overdose prevention education to reach hidden populations of people who use drugs and who can be reluctant to seek support due to the stigma that they experience. It is also training peer leaders to gain the required skills to help build capacity through a peer health navigation program designed to assist those most at risk of overdose.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Cannabis Substitution of Alcohol as a Component of Managed Alcohol Programs: Pilot Intervention and Evaluation
University of Victoria (Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research) – Victoria, BC
$1,373,510 added to the existing $1,908,846 already provided by SUAP to pilot and evaluate a cannabis substitution (CS) intervention as a component of Managed Alcohol Programs (MAPs) for people with severe alcohol use disorders experiencing unstable housing. Specifically, this pilot will support the development of CS programs and establish whether these kinds of programs contribute to significant health, safety and well-being improvements of participants. Results from this program will then be used to generate recommendations for the further refinement and scale up opportunities for these kinds of projects.
Theme: Cannabis
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Chronic Pain and Prescribed Opioid Use: Translating women's experiences into resources for health care providers
Centre of Excellence for Women's Health Society – Vancouver, BC
$341,847 added to the existing $366,282 already provided by SUAP to develop gender sensitive resources for Canadian healthcare practitioners and promote practice change for women with chronic pain who receive prescribed opioids. This is conducted virtually and, as such, will have the capacity to reach women with lived and living experience, health care providers and health service agencies in urban, rural, and remote communities, Indigenous communities, small to large sized cities, and regions without adequate access to primary care physicians but where other prescribers (i.e., nurse practitioners) are available.
Theme: Chronic Pain
Funding envelope: Amendment

Culture as Harm Reduction Knowledge Bundles: An Indigenous-Led National KTE Initiative
Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation – Vancouver, BC
$400,000 added to the existing $1,491,529 already provided by SUAP in partnership with the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network (CAAN) to provide capacity-building training on delivering culturally relevant harm reduction services for Indigenous and non-Indigenous harm reduction service organizations in urban and semi-urban communities; and to create a national community of practice on wise practices in Indigenous harm reduction including a repository of knowledge products and resources. The project will build off a current CIHR funded research project on COVID-19, Indigenous harm reduction and resources to address gaps in services.
Theme: Indigenous
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Digital health innovation scale up or the mitigation of the opioid crisis in British Columbia and Yukon 
Connective Support Society (formerly John Howard Society Pacific Region) – Vancouver, BC 
$144,429 over 27 months to expand the current Lifeguard Connect App by customizing a unique version to support vulnerable individuals that have been released from correctional facilities or have otherwise been in contact with the justice system. The updated app will include culturally sensitive imagery, unique features and functionalities including real-time toxic substance alerts. The app will also direct people to available resources and virtual supports such as suicide prevention services, naloxone and CPR guides, crisis response services, virtual educational resources, direct peer to-peer connections, job listings, and mental health and addictions services.
Theme: Regional 
Funding Envelope: B2022

Dyadic Care for Maternal and Child Health: An Evaluation of Healthcare Services for Women with Opioid Use Disorder and the Long-Term Health Outcomes of their Children in British Columbia
Simon Fraser University – Burnaby, BC
$94,447 added to the existing $377,788 already provided by SUAP to expand and extend the project timeline with the research team of Dr. Bohdan Nosyk to work with the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA) and the Provincial Perinatal Substance Use Project to collaboratively evaluate the quality, accessibility, and cultural safety of healthcare services for women and pregnant people with substance use disorder (SUD) (including opioid use disorder (OUD)) and their children. The project will also strengthen the clinical evidence-base for the treatment of perinatal OUD and investigate the association between the health of mothers with SUD and the long-term health outcomes of their children. The project will establish a strong community partnership facilitated by Indigenous Elders to engage Indigenous and non-Indigenous people with lived/living experience of substance use and pregnancy in all research stages.
Theme: Indigenous
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Injectable Opioid Agonist Treatment Carry Doses (iCarries): Individualizing care and supporting continuity of care
University of British Columbia (School of Population and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine) – Vancouver, BC
$205,804 added to the existing $237,458 already received by SUAP to promote, expand, and evaluate the uptake of injectable opioid agonist treatment (iOAT) carry doses (iCarries) with a person-centred care approach. The funding extension will also help the University of British Columbia reach smaller, more remote communities in BC which cannot currently access iCarries. Results from this program will inform the expansion of iOAT services in BC and across Canada.
Theme: Opioid Agonist Treatment (iOAT)/Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Knknxtəwix̌ "We walk hand in hand" Indigenous Harm Reduction and Structural Stigma Dialogue with the Healthcare Sector
The Corporation of the City of Kelowna – Kelowna, BC
$92,005 added to the existing $662,433 already provided by SUAP, to equip Indigenous people with lived or living experience (PWLLE) of substance use and peer navigators with the skills to provide culturally-appropriate harm reduction services. PWLLE of substance use and healthcare professionals will engage in dialogue to produce innovative and pragmatic solutions for addressing systemic stigma and racism within the healthcare system.
Theme: Indigenous and Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Stronger together Family-peer support
Moms Stop the Harm society – Pender Island, BC
$168,056 added to the existing $344,935 already provided by SUAP, to create in-person and online support workshops and support groups for families who have family members who have substance use disorder, and families who have lost a family member to substance us- related causes. This program uses combination of volunteer peer leaders and paid peer facilitators with lived and living experience of substance use disorder. Workshops will be held in urban centres across Canada that have a high incidence of drug-related deaths. These workshops will provide families with information on evidence-based services, and resources available in each region by inviting health practitioners and people with lived experience.
Theme: Peer Support
Funding Envelope: Amendment

MySafe Project for Low Barrier Access to Oral Hydromorphone to Prevent Fatal Overdoses
MySafe Society – Vancouver, BC
$1,322,081 added to the existing $3,5000,000 already provided by SUAP to expand the MySafe Society safer supply project. The additional funding will enable the organization to operate five sites in four cities across Canada and provide medication to people living with opioid use disorder as an alternative to the toxic illegal drug supply and to help prevent overdoses.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Peers at Peers: Sex, Gender and trauma Informed Harm Reduction for People in the Sex Work or Trade
Peers Victoria Resources Society – Victoria, BC
$134,058 added to the existing $265,476 already provided by SUAP to offer harm reduction and therapeutic communication training to individuals with lived or living experience of substance and that have experience in sex work in Victoria, British Columbia. Participants will be offered a supported work experience through which they will facilitate harm reduction workshops aimed at people who use substances. With this gained experience, the project will further support the trainees in finding paid or volunteer work in the field of harm reduction.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Peers First
Burnaby Family Life Institute - Burnaby, BC
$19,290 added to the existing $115,739 already provided by SUAP to recruit and give peers the necessary tools to improve their communications skills and ensure harm reduction. This will help address the stigma experienced by people with lived or living experience of substance use. The program will also provide support to peers in community outreach activities targeted at vulnerable community members. Individuals receiving support may also be experiencing multiple challenges including racial discrimination, economic hardship, homelessness and/or housing insecurities, a lack of belonging, mental illness, and pain.
Theme: Harm Reduction and Reducing Stigma
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Peer Overdose Prevention Project
City of Vancouver – Vancouver, BC
$462,000 added to the existing $665,628 already provided by SUAP to hire, train and provide wrap-around support for peer workers to work in the city-owned Oppenheimer Park. Peer workers build trust and relationships, provide harm reduction information and supplies and connect peers to existing services and programs including Overdose Prevention Sites. Peer workers provide peer support and in- and out- reach more broadly to people in and around the bathroom facilities, focusing on reaching out to people who may be using alone in washrooms, corners, alleys or other areas, as well as people who may not be accessing services. The project is based on lessons learned from a peer outreach pilot project at Oppenheimer Park and includes peer-led harm reduction education events or sessions, including peer-led meetings, support groups or community of practice sessions, community gatherings, and other learning opportunities.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

PEOPLE Peer Navigators and Capacity Building
The Corporation of the City of Kelowna – Kelowna, BC
$225,000 added to the existing $691,000 already provided by SUAP, to train and mentor people with lived and living experience with substance use to become peer navigators and to support the capacity of social service organizations in central Okanagan (Kelowna and West Kelowna). In addition, this project will develop a curriculum for peer-to-peer Indigenous cultural teachings (such as smudge, land-based learning, tobacco teachings, drum and song), support Indigenous peers to gain competencies to deliver those teachings, and support organizations to introduce peer-to-peer Indigenous cultural teachings as a service offering within their organization.
Theme: Peer Support
Funding envelope: Amendment

Sacred Circle Indigenous Wellness Society Program for Substance Use Disorder Prevention and Treatment
Sacred Circle Indigenous Wellness Society – Kamloops, BC
$1,963,855 over 24 months to design and deliver a program for treating and preventing substance use disorder. This program provides a comprehensive 16-week approach that includes a series of ceremonies based on traditional Indigenous knowledge. Sessions will be led by Indigenous facilitators and support personnel that will be tailored to the traditions of the territories in which they are occurring. Each participant will undergo an intake process that includes trauma-informed assessments, an individual therapeutic session provided by trauma-informed Indigenous therapists, as well as a group session that will include the other participants in their cohort. This program will support and test the impact of ketamine therapy (prescribed, on a case-by-case basis, by a qualified physician specializing in substance use and mental health) and traditional healing ceremonies on processing trauma and dependence on opioids, stimulants, alcohol, and prescription drugs.
Theme: Indigenous
Funding Envelope: B2022

Safer Nanaimo Initiative
AVI Health and Community Services Society – Victoria, BC
$372,872 added to the existing $1,242,904 already provided by SUAP to develop a flexible, community-based safer supply model in an underserved regional area of British Columbia that has a high rate of drug poisoning deaths. The goal is to improve the lives of people who use drugs by providing pharmaceutical alternatives to the toxic drug supply and by developing a sustainable collaborative care network, which will bring together health care providers including physicians and nurses, harm reduction services, people with lived/living experience of substance use, pharmacies, Indigenous communities and other allied health care workers. The collaborative network will develop practices and protocols that maximize existing resources to overcome the barriers that rural/regional communities face in delivering safer supply programs.
Theme: Safer Supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

SAFER North Island
AVI Health and Community Services Society – Campbell River, BC
$758,653 added to the existing $2,866,022 already provided by SUAP to build on the Victoria SAFER Initiative and adapt the existing SAFER model for use in rural and remote communities. This community designed and driven program will connect people to safe pharmaceutical alternatives to the toxic drug supply, while providing the connection to enhanced community care and social support through collaborative care networks. The project is focusing on the British Columbia communities of Comox Valley and Campbell River.
Theme: Safer supply
Funding Envelope: B2021

Shimai Drop-In Space
Atira Women's Resources Society – Vancouver, BC
$656,786 over 24 months to increase the hours and services of the Shimai Drop-In Program. Provided by women and peers with lived experience, the program will enable women in Surrey who use drugs and/or engage in sex work to get practical and emotional support through a safe environment. This funding will also allow the organization to extend its opening hours to 16 hours a day. As part of this project, the organization also provides information on harm reduction practices, drug testing, and HIV and hepatitis C prevention, and harm reduction supplies.
Theme: Community-based
Funding Envelope: B2022

Squamish Pain and Primary Care Program
Squamish Helping Hands Society – Squamish, BC
$785,762 over 27 months to provide wrap-around, multidisciplinary primary care to people experiencing pain, chronic disease, mental health challenges, who are homeless (or at-risk of homelessness) and using substances or at risk of using substances and who experience barriers to accessing primary care. This project builds on the Squamish Pain Program and the Peer Witness Program. The primary care clinic compliments the Pain Program by addressing the root causes of substance use and providing integrated services for pain management. Services will be based out of Under One Roof, a supportive housing facility located in Squamish, BC. This project will include access to Making Sense of Pain, a nine to10 week facilitated course on pain self-management and "Street Drug" training, which is a collaborative education course created by Vancouver Coastal Health, designed to reduce harm, prevent, and respond to overdoses on the front lines. Participants who complete up to 10 courses/modules receive a 'Street Degree' in overdose management.
Theme: Pain
Funding Envelope: B2022

The Rapid Access Clinic for Low Back Pain – One Upstream Solution to Mitigate and Prevent Future Substance Use-Related Harms and Deaths
Fraser Health Authority – Surrey, BC
$519,768 over 27 months to deliver a Rapid Access Clinic (RAC) for Low Back Pain (LBP) pilot for primarily men working in the trades and transportation sectors in the Fraser Health region of BC who currently have low back pain. The project will deliver services including risk assessment and treatment focused on non-pharmacologic pain management and referral to early substance use treatment and mental health supports, if required. Patients will have access to primary care providers, advanced-practice physiotherapists and chiropractors, and spinal specialists for evidence-based assessments, counseling, and referral to specialists. This pilot will build on the Inter-professional Spine Assessment and Education Clinics Pilot that ran from 2012 to 2015 in Ontario.
Theme: Pain
Funding Envelope: B2022

The Sea To Sky Community Services Society (SSCS)
Sea to Sky Mindful Harm Reduction – Squamish, BC
$166,293 added to the existing $706,746 already provided by SUAP to implement a program that will help address youth at risk for anxiety, depression and substance use, and who are increasingly in need of relevant services lacking in the Squamish region. This initiative aims to improve support for youth in need throughout the region, reaching them at early onset and preventing emerging issues (e.g., addiction). This project will focus on streamlining care trajectories, establishing single-point access to multiple services, prioritizing generous relationship-based approaches, and committing to empowering youth as care-seekers and decision-makers.
Theme: Youth
Funding envelope: B2022

Trauma and Resiliency Informed Practice (TRIP)
Fraser Health Authority – Surrey, BC
$24,030 added to the existing $123,583 already provided by SUAP to formalize and scale-up their Trauma and Resiliency Informed Practice and stigma reduction training for health providers in British Columbia and communities across Canada. The project will expand and standardize the Trauma and Resiliency Informed Practice (TRIP) program, developed by Fraser Health Authority in partnership with the Mental Health Commission of Canada, to reduce stigma and improve care by teaching health and social workers about self-compassion and trauma-informed practice. A TRIP train-the-trainer methodology and resource guide, an implementation guide, and an assessment tool will be developed and piloted across Canada and with an Indigenous partner organization.
Theme: Stigma
Funding envelope: Amendment

Wearable Vital Sign Monitoring for Overdose Detection and Emergency Notification
Simon Fraser University – Burnaby, BC
$592,157 over 27 months to develop and test a wearable digital overdose prevention device capable of autonomously monitoring the vital signs of clients, detecting when an overdose has occurred, and alerting emergency medical services with the overdosing person's location. Using pulse oximetry to measure the heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen levels to quickly detect an overdose event. The device will be developed at the Simon Fraser University's Micro instrumentation Lab and validated at safer consumption sites in the Lower Mainland and Southern Interior of BC, and at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users' offices.
Theme: Harm reduction
Funding Envelope: B2022

Manitoba (total of $3,233,007)

Healing and Harm Reduction Substance Abuse Program
John Howard Society of Manitoba – Winnipeg, MB
$148,748 added to the $470,414 already provided by SUAP to create a culturally-sensitive program for men in the Winnipeg area from First Nations communities who use drugs and who have been in contact with the law. Additional funding will provide six new group sessions about opioid use.
Theme: Indigenous
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Meeting in the Moment: Integrating Street Health, Addictions Medicine and Primary Care (Winnipeg)
Nine Circles Community Health Centre, Inc. – Winnipeg, MB
$420,000 added to the existing $853,792 already provided by SUAP to improve the accessibility and acceptability of primary care and social services for people who use methamphetamines and other drugs, and who are at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other STBBI's due to substance use. Over four years, the project aims to reach approximately 1,200 people who use drugs in Winnipeg's downtown and Point Douglas neighborhoods.
Theme: Primary Care and Social Services
Funding envelope: Amendment

Rapid Access to Addiction Medicine (RAAM) Mobile & Virtual Services Pilot 
Shared Health (Manitoba) – Winnipeg, MB
$345,160 added to the existing $897,416 already provided by SUAP to improve patient access to addiction medicine by establishing a Rapid Access to Addictions Medicine (RAAM) walk-in clinic at the three locations in Manitoba (in Brandon with a mobile unit visiting Swan River, Virden, and Russell). The project will enhance local primary care capacity by providing effective follow-up support through the mobile-virtual RAAM teams based in Brandon.
Theme: Rapid-Access Clinics
Funding envelope: Amendment

RaY Substance Use Harm Reduction Education Program
Resource Assistance for Youth Inc. – Winnipeg, MB
$271,261 added to the existing $668,646 already provided by SUAP to offer an interactive and self-guided virtual/online mental health, addictions and harm reduction education portal for approximately 200 street-entrenched and marginalized youth in Winnipeg and in rural communities in Manitoba.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

#smokedontpoke: A meth pipe pilot project by people who use drugs in Pine Falls and Selkirk Manitoba
Manitoba Harm Reduction Network – Pine Falls and Selkirk, MB
$130,000 added to the existing $190,996 already provided by SUAP to improve access to harm reduction for people who use meth by offering pipes and information, and by working to reduce stigma. Additional funding will be used to support 10 satellite sites in Manitoba to provide increased access to safer drug use supplies to more than 330 people in seven rural communities and one Northern community.
Theme: Harm Reduction
Funding Envelope: Amendment

The MOEAO Program - Metis Opioid Education and Addictions Outreach Program
Manitoba Metis Federation – Winnipeg, MB
$1,917,838 over 24 months to develop a Métis focused opioid education, stigma, harm reduction and addictions outreach program in Manitoba. The project will conduct community consultations to increase understanding of the current attitudes towards opioid use within Métis communities across Manitoba. The project will also: develop and deliver workshops on opioids, safer use and opioid overdose prevention and response; provide on-site psychiatric care services and opioid medication management services in Winnipeg; distribute naloxone kits and fentanyl test strips through seven regional offices across Manitoba; and use an outreach van to visit each of the six rural regions once per month.
Theme: Indigenous
Funding Envelope: B2022

Saskatchewan (total of $1,984,392)

APSS Opioid Overdose Prevention Program (AOOP)
AIDS Programs South Saskatchewan – Regina, SK
$265,000 in addition to the existing $663,183 already provided by SUAP to reduce overdose risks and prevent opioid overdoses for Indigenous people who use substances and for those at risk of opioid use/overdose in North Central core of Regina. Program includes one-on-one, small group and drop-in overdose prevention education sessions. It also provides naloxone training and kit distribution to target demographics of people who use substances in the correctional system, as well as people in Indigenous communities, at-risk youth and professionals. The additional funding will increase project reach to target demographics and extend the availability of a peer worker.
Theme: Indigenous and Substance Use
Funding Envelope: Amendment

Developing a Complex Chronic Pain Service for Prevention, Treatment, and Training  
Saskatchewan Health Authority – Regina, SK
$1,719,392 over 27 months to provide comprehensive treatment and timely access to appropriate care through implementing the Saskatchewan Health Authority's Complex Chronic Pain Service (CCPS). The primary target population of this project is individuals living with chronic pain who are at risk of or currently experiencing opioid dependency, opioid use disorder, or a primary or secondary diagnosis of substance use disorder. This includes individuals who use prescription opioids and those who acquire opioids or other substances via illicit sources. The CCPS will operate in a hub and spoke model using specialized providers from a range of health disciplines (i.e., pharmacy, mental health, physiotherapy, addictions medicine). The project will be implemented in three phases: Regina Chronic Pain Clinic (Regina Hospital); Opioid and Pain Consultation Services (Regina and Pasqua Hospitals); and a Provincial Satellite Clinic in cooperation with healthcare networks and acute care facilities (Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, Yorkton and Swift Current). The multidisciplinary mobile clinic team will establish pop-up services to perform specialized interventional pain procedures across Saskatchewan.
Theme: Chronic Pain
Funding Envelope: B2022