Key takeaways:
- The Native Council of P.E.I. has cast a mobile harm-reduction program.
- While the program is driven toward the Indigenous people, Cooper stated, employees wouldn’t refuse services to anyone they see in pain.
Harm-reduction program help people with addiction:
Indigenous individuals stumbling with addictions who live off reserves now have the key to a new harm-reduction program through the Native Council of Prince Edward Island.
Employees will meet individuals to access clean needles, tents, blankets, and first-aid supplies.
While outreach services are proposed in Charlottetown, Lisa Cooper, president and chief of NCPEI, states it’s essential Indigenous individuals deliver the program. “Community members who are stray, we can link them to our wrap-around schedules at the Native Council on mental fitness and habits, homelessness,” she stated. Source – cbc.ca
“We have 56 rent-geared-to-income units. We can set them up in a hotel, so it’s actually about looking after our community because Indigenous programs ought to be Indigenous-led.” Source – cbc.ca
Also read: The financial help proposed to PEI employees, firms affected by COVID-19
Harm-reduction program helping Indigenous individuals off reserves dealing with addiction
‘We’re holding needles off the ground:.’
Cooper stated the council would have a vehicle to meet people to deliver the assistance.
“The mobile harm-reduction team is out there in the trenches where our most vulnerable people are,” she stated.
“Our expectancy in the long run, and the end, is that we provide adequate supports and wrap around that they are not utilizing. They have a safe area to go, and they get more beneficial.” Source – cbc.ca
