Caitlin Burritt  00:00 

Thank you for listening to the Unsilencing Stories Podcast. We are in the midst of a public health crisis. More than 32,000 people in Canada have died from fatal opioid overdoses since 2016 according to Health Canada. Previously, this podcast featured interviews with bereaved people in smaller towns and communities in BC and Alberta who have lost loved ones to fatal overdose. In this phase, we're sharing interviews with seven harm reduction workers, also known as peers, in different parts of BC.   

Caitlin Burritt  00:27 

The BC Centre for Disease Control Harm Reduction Services defines harm reduction as support services and strategies that aim to keep people safe and minimise death, disease and injury from high risk behaviour. Peers face a lot of challenges. This has been documented by many researchers including Zahra Mamdani and colleagues in BC. In their 2021 paper they outline significant challenges peers face including financial struggles, difficulty finding housing and stressors at work. We wanted to explore these themes with peers and find out more about their experiences and share this information with the public. So we conducted multiple remote interviews with harm reduction workers and invited them to talk about the stressors they face.    

Caitlin Burritt  01:06 

Please note this podcast contains information about substance use, overdose death, grief, trauma and stressors that peers face and this may be distressing to listen to. The podcast is part of a research project led by Aaron Goodman, PhD, faculty member at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, BC, and conducted under the auspices of a grant known as the Chancellor's Chair Award. I'm Caitlin Burritt, a researcher with the project. A number of researchers including Giorgia Ricciardi and Chloe Burritt, who happens to be my sister, and a number of students have played key roles in the study and you'll hear many of their voices in this podcast.   

Caitlin Burritt  01:41 

In this episode, you'll hear Lucas Akai and Esther Cheung interview Ben for the last time, Ben discusses an upcoming workshop he's hosting about ending internalised stigma. Lucas, Esther, and Ben review the list of stressors to see if Ben has noticed any changes in how the stressors affect him and his work since the interview process began.  

Esther Cheung  01:58 

How are you?  

Ben  02:00 

I have a workshop I'm giving tomorrow and it's turning into a very busy day today. So I'm, I'm coping okay.  

Esther Cheung  02:11 

What's the focus on the workshop this week, or tomorrow? 

Ben  02:15 

 It's ending internalised stigma, not taking on other people's attitudes towards drug users, basically. It's based on a series of workshops on ending self stigma from the Veterans Administration in the States. So it's written with more of a mental health focus. But you can easily replace the words mental health and they do include addiction in there. But anyway, we gave, we gave the first workshop back in October, I think, andwe're trying to, we're skipping ahead to the, it's it's a nine part series.  

Ben  03:01 

But anyway, we've been having trouble as you know, getting people to turn out quite often, but seem to be over that at this point and it looks like we might have to turn some people away this time, but we'll see how it goes. We postered in [bleeped] as well but then we were basically trying to discourage people. We didn't, we didn't sign anybody up from [bleeped]. But I got a call today from the shelter there and people were asking about it.  

Ben  03:37 

And so we'll see what happens. A couple people from [bleeped] were up there, and we're adding them to the list, but trying to keep it to a more manageable number of people so that we can actually get through the material. So I'll let you get to your questions, I guess.  

Lucas Akai  03:57 

Absolutely. So of course, this is the last, this is the number 10. This is our last interview. So the goal for today will be to kind of do a brief run through the other four stressors excluding exposure to death and trauma and just to see if there's been any changes or developments since we, you know, first asked the questions, in some cases, you know, nine weeks ago. So maybe just starting off, have you seen or noticed or seen any changes in the amount of financial compensation for your work? Has it become, has it changed for the better for the worse at any point over this, you know, the course of these nine weeks or? 

Ben  04:42 

Well, I've been getting more and more, sort of, side projects, I suppose like this sort of thing. So that that helps increase it a bit and we just did our project review for funders. And when we put in our proposal initially, we'd sort of dedicated the majority of the funding to running workshops and paying peers. And I'm not sure, we sort of thought that instructions for the grant writing discouraged paying, sort of, staff wages. In any case, our fiscal agents sort of agreed that it took more sort of staffing hours to run the project than initially anticipated or whatever. So I think that we were a little hesitant to pay ourselves, like we put in more hours, typically, in a given week than we invoice for. 

Ben  06:06 

 So I think that we've adjusted our attitude a bit in that regard, and are a little more comfortable with invoicing for more of the work that we're doing. So probably, I think we've increased our compensation, in that respect, just not being so hesitant to put in for the time that we're actually spending on, on the peer outreach.  

Lucas Akai  06:39 

And so do you find with these changes the changes towards your attitude for compensation, or even just finding, like, new jobs to do within this, like career path, o you find that this has changed your outlook on whether this is a sustainable career path? Are you looking for other, other work outside the field? Or is this something you've kind of, like you're gonna stay with for a little while still?  

Ben  07:03 

Well, some of these projects that we're starting up, like, later today, we're just starting a rural and remote harm reduction group. I don't really know, off the top of my head much about it. It's the first meeting today, but it's going to be going on for several months. And I think we won't really know, sorry, I gotta, apparently don't have this plugged in right now, I gotta make sure we don't lose power here. [indiscernable] We won't know until at least January if our funding is being renewed. But I expect that we're going to carry on for at least another year... 

Ben  07:57 

I probably told you that we already had a sort of bridging grant or something like that, to carry on for another three months or so since Officially, the funding just lasted until the end of last month. So we only probably spend half of the grant anyway and so they rolled that over. So we certainly have enough funds currently to carry on into early spring or something like that. And unless our housing situation changes to the point where it's easier for my partner to get around and make his own cup of tea or whatever, I I don't expect I'll be able to leave the house to do other work. But I guess, I don't know, I've, I've, I've done some paid writing stuff occasionally. And you know, that's the main direction I'd be leaning in to do other work. If I could get it could be that kind of thing. So. 

Lucas Akai  09:04 

And so do you find that the way in which the respect or the recognition as a peer worker, has that changed or developed in different ways over these 9, 10 weeks that we've spoken about? 

Ben  09:17 

I think our presence in the community has increased quite a bit in recent months, so like being on the Community Action Team, we've been involved in that for quite a while but I think in particular with the International Overdose Awareness Day event in the late summer, that we've been more visible to a wider segment of the community, I suppose. I mean, mainly people that know us more personally have expressed support and encouragement for what we're doing but I, I feel like the folks in the municipal government who are aware of our work or are more vocally supportive, and I think we're more well known about by the other people working in the shelters and supportive housing and the overdose prevention site and stuff like that.  

Ben  10:22 

So, it's still kind of a fairly narrow portion of the population, I guess. But it's still more more positive feedback overall, in general, from at least that little group of folks. 

Lucas Akai  10:43 

And so with that change, and that develop, positive development in terms of the recognition you guys are getting, and you mentioned earlier today that the workshop, you've had so many individuals sign up that you might have to turn people away, has that become a more common thing as the recognition you guys are getting, as you know, increased or in terms of like the amount of people coming to workshops or events?  

Ben  11:05 

Well, it's, seems like we probably have to be we, we've been disappointed with turnout more often than not, but I think we have to adjust our attitude as far as what to expect when we're putting on a workshop at this point and be prepared for more substantial participation. Basically, it just, I think we can be confident that people will turn up if we put on a workshop. So we have to gauge our own energy and enthusiasm and ability to make that happen in an effective way. But as I say, we still have substantial funding, and pretty much dedicated to that sort of thing. So given that there's interest on a level beyond what we might have thought, a few months ago, it would be worthwhile for us to plan ahead to be doing more of this more frequently in the near future than we've been doing up until now. 

Lucas Akai  12:17 

And so one thing that had come up several times was the struggles and the obstacles being put up by certain municipalities with regards to the local ten shelters. Have you noticed any change in that regard, in that area? Or has it improved? Has it gotten worse in some aspects?  

Ben  12:39 

Oh, well, they just had, as they, as I was telling you, last week, there was a council meeting that was attended by several people from the tent encampment. And they were able to speak to the council and be listened to, at least, while they were in the room, they had the attention of the council, seemingly respectfully, and want to keep that avenue of communication open. So it's early days, it's hard to say how much change it's had but or impact impact it's had but I think it's, you know, it's a good sign that there, there will be a more balanced or informed perspective on that community, since they're not going anywhere. It's not going to make it go away, just dismantling what was previously existing in a, in a more visible situation, they're still going to have to, and I guess, there's been an impression that a lot of the people in this camp are coming from downtown Vancouver or something.  

Ben  13:56 

So they helped to clear up that misconception that the majority of people are actually longtime residents, or they didn't just show up here from the Downtown Eastside in the last few weeks or months, or that's kind of been a common rumour or that something like that.  

Lucas Akai  14:20 

Right. And so that I would imagine that rumour was used to justify the actions that they were doing, basically? 

Ben  14:25 

 Yeah.  

Lucas Akai  14:26 

And so over this period of nine weeks, have you found that the challenges that you might have or might face in regards to referring individuals you work with, to resources in the community have changed. Have those challenges changed in any way?  

Ben  14:42 

Well, they've still changed pretty much for the worse. I just heard this morning that they have two shelters or two sections of the emergency shelter um, so as the, my impression is that they've just recently increased the available space for emergency shelter. But the situation with the overdose prevention site is, is quite disappointingly limited in terms of what it's set up to do and the people, basically the organisation responsible for running that has kind of been maintaining control over that whole scene is not really doing what they need to be doing to, to manage the responsibilities that they've taken on in that regard.  

Ben  15:48 

And so there's a movement to create something separate from that, to be able to more effectively respond to the community's needs, rather than waiting for them to get it together and do what they're supposed to be doing. The idea is to create a new organisation or, or some kind of body to look after that, those those responsibilities or issues that are languishing, currently.  

Lucas Akai  16:28 

And so, you, we had actually, you'd mentioned in previous suites, that there's been an increase in organisations not really acting in the most responsible ways. Is that something that you've noticed this increased over the years or maybe even just this year? Or is it a new phenomenon within the industry of peer work, or? 

Ben  16:49 

 I guess the needs are more glaring than they have been before. And I wasn't, I mean, I wasn't hearing so many complaints previously about this organisation, per se. But, like, I just got a message this morning that one of the people that has been volunteering for us recently is so frustrated with the situation that they've quit their job at overdose prevention sites. So I know that there's not that many people that are really capable of taking on that kind of role.  

Ben  17:25 

So there, you know, it's, it's certainly a loss to the, to the organisation in question to, you know, not have been able to keep that person satisfied. And I think that the person in question has their own issues as well and they might be misreading the situation to some degree. And if they were not anticipating um, things going poorly, they might be able to cooperate towards more effectively resolving some of the problems, or at least, like I'm talking about this new, new, new potential organisation, is probably going to take some time for it to, to come together, but some of the same people will be involved, probably, so rather than viewing them as obstacles or enemies or whatever they might, might be able to work cooperatively if they chose to, and still stick, stick it out and, and have a positive impact, but I expect that they're going to carry on still doing peer support kind of work without compensation, which is, you know, sort of unfortunate, given that they have limited income that they would, I think that they're, you know, I could understand, not wanting to be re-exposed to the same, like, same frustrating situation over and over again.  

Ben  19:13 

But when you only have a little bit of money coming in, it's it's unfortunate that they feel they need to take this this step and further limit their, their personal resources that way. 

Lucas Akai  19:33 

So speaking to the resources, in regards specifically to yourself, have you noticed any differences changes or new developments regards to the sports that you have access to? Have there been any new resources specifically provided for people running organisations or? 

Ben  19:53 

Well, I think similarly to what I was saying about locally, I think that we, we've managed pretty well with our funding so far. So, like the increased requests to participate in different projects in online efforts to respond to the overdose crisis is certainly, as we've already covered, just, it does help me increase my income somewhat, but probably have a similar impact. Like, I guess in the last six months, we did access this micro grant, which didn't really add to our our own income, but it did to our visibility, and allow us to do a little something extra for the community, which will help people be aware of us, not just locally, but similar things like that will probably come along more often. 

Ben  21:05 

We just ordered a little over 100, long sleeve shirts with a harm reduction messaging and our logo on the front, harm reduction messaging on the back, and we'll be distributing those in the next couple of weeks, and probably trying to get them out there to more people. Maybe not just local people, but supporters around the province, so that, that'll increase people's awareness of our group somewhat.  

Ben  21:42 

And we want to kind of cover the possibility of creating a more substantial drug user group in our workshop tomorrow, and sort of gauge the interest, if we have to create a separate event to raise people's awareness or consolidate people's interest in that possibility. We've been talking to the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users about possibly having someone from their organisation present to the local people about what they've accomplished.  

Lucas Akai  22:27 

Was there anything else that you within the five stressors or even outside of it, that you felt like we needed to go further and go into greater detail on? 

Ben  22:41 

Well, it's all very interrelated as obviously you're aware, but I think that the, the, the housing situation is, is pretty bleak. And it just, it's not anything new. I've talked about it quite a bit, but the upkeep of the place that we're living is kind of getting away from me, and it's just going to be increasingly difficult to be comfortable here without some significant renovations happening, which are expensive also. So it's really, the housing situation is is critical, obviously, in dealing with any of these issues that we're trying to address. And for me, personally, it's quite, quite concerning. I think that's mainly it. 

Esther Cheung  23:43 

Alright. Any last any last thoughts you want to squeeze in? 

Ben  23:51 

No, that's fine.  

Lucas Akai  23:53 

Of course, this wraps up the ten interviews. This is our number 10. So that's quite nice.  

Esther Cheung  24:01 

Yeah, it's been a pleasure.  

Caitlin Burritt  24:03 

That brings us to the end of this episode of the Unsilencing Stories Podcast. To listen to more interviews in the series, please go to www.unsilencingstories.com. And if you'd like to share your thoughts on the episode, message us at unsilencingstories@gmail.com. Thank you for listening.