As the overdose crisis continues to take lives in B.C., the Sunshine Coast Community Action Team (CAT) has launched a new initiative to reduce stigma and increase support.
In the Sept. 24 issue of the newspaper, a mother on the Sunshine Coast shared her family’s story about struggling to find local help for her child who developed substance use issues. The anonymous story is one of five the Sunshine Coast Community Action Team is publishing over the next several weeks for “Changing Perspectives Changing Lives,” project coordinator Ciara Knapp told Coast Reporter.
All of the stories are from people who live on the Sunshine Coast and come from different backgrounds. Each shares a different experience, such as the challenges of getting health-care services related to substance use, or how they found their way to recovery.
Stories, she said, “make it more personable, and make it more relatable with the overdose crisis, so people can recognize what’s happening on a local level in real life. It’s not just the faces in the news, or the people that they assume have substance use problems – it can be anybody.”
One of the campaign’s participants told Coast Reporter they hope the stories will help people realize that substance issues can happen in any family, and that there is a positive outcome from sharing their experiences.
“The issues that are being identified, I think, really come alive when people talk about their own real and personal experience with the difficulties with substance use and ... being stigmatized as a result of, basically, health problems,” one story writer said.
As the drug supply becomes increasingly toxic, Knapp said even people who try drugs recreationally once are at a risk for overdose.
“Reducing stigma makes it less isolating and less shaming to use substances,” Knapp said. “We know overdose deaths are occurring by people that are using alone. So if we can reduce the stigma, hopefully it allows people to reach out for help if they want to get help.”
The campaign also aims to increase awareness and use of local resources, such as the overdose prevention site in Sechelt, a harm reduction outreach worker based out of the Gibsons Public Health Unit, and a peer navigator through the Canadian Mental Health Association. Knapp also suggested apps that people who use alone can download and use to contact someone if they do not respond in a certain timeframe.
Information about local resources will be shared on the Sunshine Coast CAT Facebook page, where the stories can also be found as they come out.
