Project 460783

Small urban, rural and remote communities face any challenges in engaging with harm reduction, including, wide geographic service areas, limited resources, and stigma and discrimination against people who use drugs. These and other challenges impact small urban, rural and remote communities' ability to provide equitable access to harm reduction services and to provide safe and appropriate care. Even with these challenges, many community-based harm reduction providers have found ways to make services work better within their community. These providers are important leaders, becoming harm reduction information and expertise hubs. There is benefit in linking these hubs together to share what they have learned about what works when providing harm reduction services, to identify gaps in knowledge and information relating to their work and to discuss potential research questions that could support harm reduction in rural communities moving forward. We propose a series of monthly, virtual meetings bringing together experts on harm reduction in small urban, rural and remote places across BC. Allowing people to come together to network, build relationships, and set priorities for research moving forward, with a goal of answering the following research questions: "What harm reduction practices and approaches best support people living in small urban, rural and remote communities? What unique and innovative programs/services have community-based organizations developed to support their service users and why are they successful? Where are there gaps in knowledge that if filled, would allow rural CBOs to improve outcomes?" This series of meetings will allow for the discussion and sharing of successful practices and approaches and laying the groundwork for future research priorities including a clear work plan to further refine future research priorities and a strategic plan for seeking out funding to support this work.