Project 466558

Illicit drug use is associated with severe health and social harms among young people, which have been further exacerbated in the context of the overlapping overdose and COVID-19 crises in Greater Vancouver. In response to the overdose public health emergency, the government of British Columbia has advanced the development of substance use treatment, including residential treatment beds for younger drug users. While there is a growing understanding of the barriers to care encountered by marginalized youth using drugs, there exist few in-depth investigations looking at how these young people engage with current residential treatment practices, and how they understand and navigate other systems of care and supervision. Such an approach is critical to developing impactful policy and program interventions that seek to reduce harms related to drug use. The proposed study will employ qualitative ethnographic methodology to explore how young people enter, undertake, and leave residential treatment programs for substance use. Although new lines of inquiry are likely to emerge as the research progresses, the primary objectives of this study are: 1) to explore how young people who use drugs interact with residential treatment services; 2) to examine how individual (e.g., concurrent mental health care needs), social (e.g., relationships with caregivers), and structural (e.g., homelessness, systemic racism) factors shape engagement with residential treatment services; and 3) to identify how current residential treatments can be tailored to better match the needs and desires of diverse young drug users. The findings from this study will have important implications for public health policies and programs that better align with the wants and desires of young people using drugs.