Engaging People Who Use Substances: A Needs Assessment Project in Guelph

This episode is a conversation with Kyley Alderson from the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Health Unit about a needs assessment Kyley was recently a part of. Work on this project began in 2018 when Guelph was experiencing an increase in harms related to opioid use. The health unit wanted to engage the community and people who use illegal substances, in order to understand the context, what people use and how, what gaps exist in the community, and what ideas for solutions people have.

Staff from the health unit established an advisory committee, made up of local coalitions and agencies as well as people with lived experience of substance use. Through partners who had established relationships, 3 peers (people with lived experience of substance use) were hired to take part in the advisory committee and be peer researchers. The advisory committee developed the needs assessment strategy, which focused around interviews conducted by peer researchers, developed the interview guide, completed the ethics application, and selected the locations to conduct interviews.

The community engagement approach to conducting the needs assessment had several benefits:

• Planning: Approaches for the surveys were well planned out for the survey audience.
• Recruitment: Peer researchers helped with recruitment and led recruitment in ways that were appropriate for them and the audience. Peer researchers had trust and relationships with the audience, which allowed respondents to answer questions in open and honest ways.  
• Shared language: Peer researchers understand language around using substances, which helped with designing the survey questions and conducting the interviews.
• Analyzing and interpreting results: Having peer researchers who really understand the context helped with interpretation of the data and choosing what to highlight.

The community engagement strategy had a number of impacts. The findings were shared with community members, leaders and decision-makers, who were impacted by the data and stories collected as part of the project. The power of story helped to broaden and change thinking about people who use substances. The findings informed a number of grant applications, the development of new projects, service planning for the community’s consumption and treatment service, and the development of a substance use strategy for the health unit. The findings also helped to inform a second phase of the needs assessment, which focusses on people who weren’t reached by the interviews (for example, people who don’t live in Guelph and people who don’t use the services where the interviews were held).

Kyley’s advice for folks who are beginning peer research and/or working with people who use substances is to focus on relationships and connect with the community. Building trust with community partners, with peers and with people who use substances is a foundation for all meaningful work. Caring is important as well: to care about building relationship for the purpose of making the community better.

Kyley wants to acknowledge the project’s Advisory Committee members and staff who helped to meaningfully engage the community. Specifically, Patty Montague, Melissa Potwarka, Jennifer MacLeod, Moira Barber, Steph Beaumont, Todd Mansfield, Colin McVicker, Tom Hammond, Adrienne Crowder, Sarah Haanstra, April Fyfe and Chanelle Lobo.

Kyley and Andrea have the following resources to share:

• Research 101: A Manifesto for Ethical Research in the Downtown Eastside is a “how to” manual, informed by people who use substances.
• To learn more about the experiences of people who use drugs, check out the Crackdown Podcast for a Canadian perspective and Drugs Uncut from the Scottish Drugs Forum.
• The BC Centre for Disease Control has a guide for peer payments that created in collaboration with peers and providers. The guide provides rationale for questions that are often asked in organizations.