In 2013, walking a Winnipeg labyrinth helped Corey Bialek consider a contemplative question: what would it mean to not be depressed? The labyrinth was not curative, but it was therapeutic. “There’s no real magic to it, but the idea is you sort of like sift the central thought as you walk through, opine on what […]

Speakers in Parksville and Courtenay joined a chorus of voices all over the world coming together in their communities to mark International Overdose Awareness Day. Observed August 31 or the days leading up to it, International Overdose Awareness Day began as a barbecue remembrance event at the Salvation Army Needle Exchange in Melbourne Australia 25 […]

Rob Csernyik is an investigative journalist who lives in Atlantic Canada and covers the gambling beat. He’s the author of A Losing Hand, a new book that takes a look at the issue of gambling related suicides in Canada. “ We have a very robust industry of legalized gambling, and yet we also have…a big preoccupation […]

The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction(CCSA) has shared a resource meant to help smaller Canadian cities address substance use harms. “The Playbook for Action has over 50 evidence-based interventions that a community could draw from,” said Chandni Sondagar, a senior knowledge broker with the organization. The playbook is a document outlining a number […]

Peers Victoria Resources Society recently marked its 30th anniversary. The organization helps sex workers in the capital region. “Sex workers in our area often can encounter stigma when accessing health and social support,” said Executive Director Leigh Elliot. “So folks may not feel comfortable disclosing the work that they do, which can limit the sort […]

A team at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction is working on a framework for a standardized unit of THC in Canada. “The concentration of THC found in cannabis has really increased over time,” said Shea Wood,  a senior knowledge broker at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. “Compared to some […]

A project from UBC’s Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) team has identified public land across the province and scored it for housing potential. HART Associate Director Craig Jones spoke with People First Radio about the map. “Anybody in B.C, I don’t care if you are a community member, in government, in a non-profit builder, for-profit […]

A team in the Comox Valley has been working to understand and address the barriers faced by people when they visit the hospital. Sharon Karsten, a professor at Vancouver Island University, and Christohper Hauschild, a Mitacs research fellow employed by VIU, are involved with Walk With Me, a community engaged research project. One of its […]

During the outbreak of a new and potentially fatal disease in Toronto in 2003, it fell to psychiatrists Bob Maunder and Jon Hunter to help people in the SARS ward cope. The two have been focusing on coping in their professional lives ever since, and have recently co-authored a book on the subject, Coping: Fix […]

Journalist and author Jessica Barrett argues we can’t solve our housing crisis until we solve our crisis of home. Barrett is the author of No Place Like Home: The Missing Key to Our Housing Crisis, which combines a macro view of the Canadian housing landscape with stories of individual people – including Barrett. Over a […]