For the first time in more than a decade, child poverty rates have gone up in British Columbia, according to a report from First Call Child and Youth Advocacy Society. Their 2023 BC Child Poverty Report Card offers insight on data from 2021, breaking down child poverty rates by family type, race, and region, and […]

Heather Nelson-Smith, CAO of Port Hardy, shares the details on the community’s new situation table. Situation tables are a method communities in British Columbia are using to try and connect individuals at risk of harm to services that could help them. At weekly meetings, members from different community organizations collaborate on how, when, and who […]

Dr. Alex Nataros, a family physician in Port Hardy, shares his experiences both personal and professional with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In a recent column, Nataros described ADHD as “Perhaps the most over-diagnosed and simultaneously under-diagnosed condition.” He elaborated on those comments on People First Radio. “We’ve all got our phones and devices, and […]

Campbell River’s Sue Moen wanted to better understand what things are like for those experiencing homelessness in the community. She asked a group of people she knew in that situation if she could join them for a night. They agreed, and Moen took her truck down to spend a night on the streets of Campbell […]

In conversation with Michelle Gamage of The Tyee, who shares insights into her recent reporting on a condition known anecdotally as ‘street feet’. Occurring when people are unable to wash and dry their feet, it bears some similarity to trench foot experienced by soldiers during the first world war.

In conversation with Stephen Gaetz, president and CEO of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, and a professor at Toronto’s York University. Gaetz says that in Canada and the U.S., there are more people coming into homelessness than there are exiting it. He was recently part of a webinar on homelessness prevention.  

Greg Dorval has been housed for around a year after being unhoused for around the same amount of time. He’s recently set up a tent outside the courthouse in Guelph On. as a form of civil protest in solidarity with those currently experiencing homelessness in the community.

Kathy Wagner shares her experiences finding hope and healing through her son Tristan’s addiction, recovery relapse, and death. She’s told her story in the memoir Here With You.  

The University of Toronto’s Katherine Tamminen says that we don’t know much about the mental health of young people involved in high level sport. “There is a lack of research on the mental health of elite youth athletes compared to adult athletes who are at those elite levels,” she said. Tamminen says it’s important that […]

The Best Place On Earth, that was British Columbia’s slogan for a while. It even showed up on license plates leading up to the Vancouver Olympics. Around the same time, Danya Fast was embarking on a project that would span the next fifteen years of her life. Her goal was to hear from young people […]