ARCHES curtails street needle distribution
WALKING OUTREACH TEAMS TO CONTINUE TO OPERATE
In response to ongoing community engagement, ARCHES will be temporarily ending needle and pipe distribution through its walking outreach teams.
“We recognize the need to try and balance both the health, safety and well-being of the community with the health, safety and well-being of drug users in this community,” ARCHES managing director JillManning said on Friday.
Walking outreach teams operate in the downtown coreMonday to Friday evenings, sporting bright yellow jackets and taking part in street-level engagement with drug users.
The teams will continue with outreach efforts and will still hand out safer sex supplies, bottled water, socks and toques and mittens during the winter months. They will also continue to engage vulnerable people to ensure relationships are beingmaintained.
The walking outreach programis led by a single staffmember and is manned by 15-20 volunteers.
Previously, safer inhalation and safer injection supplies were distributed by the teams.
This included both bubble and straight glass pipes for safer inhalation, as well as self-injection supplies called “party packs” by the people who use them.
Those kits include syringes, cooking and filtration supplies, alcohol swabs, sterile water and tourniquets.
Manning said the number of needles distributed by the walking outreach teams could vary wildly depending on circumstances but, on average, could be about 50 per night.
It is hoped that by ending street-level distribution, it will encourage drug users to attend the supervised consumption site for their supplies.
When users show up at the site, Manning said staff can encourage them to make use of the facility.
“I do want to be clear that we are not ceasing all material distribution,” she said. “There will still be materials distributed from the facility.”
“The intent of this change is so we make sure we’re not making it very easy for people to use in parks.
“If we’re coming to them in parks, and we’re distributing in parks, we do recognize the likelihood they will be using in that setting, and that we don’t want to be encouraging that behaviour.”
The change makes needle use more dangerous in the city, as there is an increased likelihood they will share or reuse their needles.
In addition, the decision is not considered a best practices model with either Alberta Health Services or the World Health Organization in terms of limiting the spread of bloodborne diseases through needle use.
Manning said the changes are not the result of social media pressure by outspoken community members.
“I want to be clear this has come as a result of those citizens who have engaged with us in a productive and meaningful way,” she said. “People have contacted our agency.
“This is an act of goodwill. We understand the community is very concerned right now, and we want to validate those concerns. We have concerns as well.
“It wasn’t in response to some of themore inappropriate behaviours and actions we’ve seen in the past few weeks.”
In addition, the organization is also changing the way it tracks needle recovery. It is hoped ARCHES will be better able to identify trouble areas for public drug use.
“We have heard community criticism and concerns around the fact our current return rates being reported arent reflected about whether a needle was picked up in community or dropped off at our facility,” she said. “We will now be separating that data.” With files from Greg Bobinec. Follow @JWSchnarrHerald on Twitter