Upcoming dates
Fees
No cost

About this event:

RNAO’s Mental Health and Substance Use Program team invites you to attend the third and fourth webinars in our Harm Reduction Series, in partnership with the Harm Reduction Nurses Association (HRNA), the National Safer Supply Community of Practice (NSS-CoP), MOMS Stop the Harm, Community Health Nurses’ Interest Group (CHNIG) and Mental Health Nurses Interest Group (MHNIG), focused on background and implementation of Safer Supply.

Harm reduction is a foundational component of nursing practice. Harm reduction is a philosophy that has a set of core principles and values, such as justice, dignity, compassion and autonomy — that shape how we work. It involves policies, programmes and practices that aim primarily to reduce the adverse health, social and economic consequences of the use of substances without necessarily reducing consumption.

Prescribed safer supply is a harm reduction approach that involves providing pharmaceutical grade drugs of known quantity and quality to people with opioid use disorder who are at high risk of overdose and other harms. This approach has become highly politicized with a lot of misinformation circulating in the media, despite proven positive impacts for people.

Join us to learn about the evidence around safer supply programs as part of a harm reduction approach and analyze the role of the nurse in this work.

During the webinar participants can learn about the:

  • goals of prescribed safer supply by understanding the problem it aims to address, i.e., the unpredictable unregulated drug supply and harmful drug policies and how safer supply fits in with progressive policy-oriented solutions to addressing the problem
  • philosophy of care: the role prescribed safer supply has on the continuum of care for people who use drugs, and its relationship to other harm reduction interventions, such as supervised consumption services
  • emerging evidence of the impacts safer supply programs have on client outcomes and health systems

Presenters and credentials:

  • Marysia (Mish) Waraksa, NP and clinical lead, Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre Safer Opioids Supply Program
  • Marlene Haines, RN, PhD candidate at the School of Nursing, University of Ottawa