Fall Conference Collage

Part of the PAN crew: Heather Picotte, Paul Kerber, Janet Madsen, Mona Lee

Thank you to all the PAN and community members (established and new) that joined us for the Fall Conference, AGM, and PLHIV Forum last week in Richmond. We will be gathering resources from presenters and sharing them on the conference page so all who attended and those who weren’t able to can view them. In the meantime; a snapshot of a few moments from the conference.

The Response to the Opioid Crisis – Management and Media

The keynote panel on next steps in drug policy featured Dan Werb and Andrea Woo. Dan is an epidemiologist and policy analyst who works with St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and the University of California in San Diego. His work focuses on HIV, substance use, and evidence-based drug policy to improve public health. Andrea Woo is a Vancouver-based journalist for the The Globe and Mail who has extensively written about the opioid crisis in BC. Her work includes coverage of the frontline community response to government decision-making, to drug policy.

Dan spoke about current drug policies and practices and how they are failing to stem deaths and overdoses. He presented  the US Environmental Protection Agency framework for dealing with contaminated water as a potential model to use for the opioid crisis, noting that public health officials would never suggest that poisoned water is the “new normal,” nor should they with drugs with either. He walked the audience through the parallel processes of contaminated water management and how these principles might be applied to the drug supply as well, including a step that provides an uncontaminated supply as essential. He also talked about prevention program approaches that could be implemented before people even start injecting. I look forward to sharing his slides when we receive them.

Andrea talked about media representation of substance use and the opioid deaths that plague BC. She spoke about how the stories are told –  what words and phrase to use and what words to avoid- and how we must see journalists as advocates and get in touch with journalists if we feel they aren’t doing their job or if you have an important story to tell.

 

Learn more Dan Werb’s work

Learn more about Andrea Woo’s work

 

Supporting the Drive for PrEP

There was a good conversation on various pieces of advocacy that have taken place over the past year and those that are ongoing. The Community Based Research Centre for Gay Men’s Health (CBRC), Health Initiative for Men (HIM) and YouthCO are driving the charge that PrEP be funded by the BC government. (For those who aren’t familiar with PrEP, it is medication that is prescribed to people who don’t have HIV to prevent them from becoming infected if they are exposed to the virus.) HIM developed a comprehensive resource last year that has a link on it to make it easy for people to advocate with the Premier and their MLA, and YouthCo has a link as well. PAN has written in support of this funding, and other groups are encouraged to do the same.

 

Learn more about PrEP

Learn more about the PrEP advocacy campaign

 

Taking a Look at PAN’s Community-Based Research Data

Two of PAN’s community-based research projects were featured at the conference: The BC People Living with HIV Stigma Index Project and Positive Living, Positive Homes. Both projects are moving into the knowledge translation phase, so we were keen to gather input from PAN member groups about what pieces of data could help support their work. Roundtable discussions for both projects took place on the second day of the conference. We will be collating the information from all these discussions to use in developing resources.

Learn more about Positive Living, Positive Homes

Learn more about The BC People Living with HIV Stigma Index Project

 

 

Strengthening the Community Response to HIV and HCV in BC

Last for the moment, but certainly not least, PAN members voted to support the application of new member organizations who are doing work to address HIV and HCV around the province. Our ranks swell by six organizations:

  • Fort Nelson Aboriginal Friendship Society
  • HepC BC
  • North Coast Transition Society
  • Progressive Intercultural Community Services
  • SARA for Women
  • Southside Health

We look forward to sharing resources and supporting each others’ work over the years to come.

Learn more about PAN members

 

Watch the Fall Conference page for more resources over the next few weeks!

 

 

Questions? Feedback? Get in touch! 
Janet Madsen, Capacity Building and Knowledge Translation Coordinator,
[email protected]