As we work toward a future free of gender-based violence, here at Nellie’s we’ve been working to build new ways for us to better support our community of women and their children fleeing violence, trauma, and homelessness. And thanks to a financial contribution from Health Canada, we’re currently developing a brand-new substance use program to provide even more women with the help they need.
There’s a major intersectionality between substance use and violence against women — an average of 63% of women seeking assistance with violence issues are also struggling with substance abuse. Many women in addiction recovery also report experiencing some form of abuse in their lifetime. But until now, there’s been a lack of holistic support for women in need of both of these services.
Enter our new substance use program, which aims to increase the knowledge of and build additional capacity for harm reduction services within violence against women shelters. Toni-Ann Allen, Nellie’s Substance Use and Addictions supervisor, has been tasked with creating this expansive program, which she recently launched with a presentation to the Violence Against Women Network (VAWN) about how the program will be integrated across all women’s shelters within VAWN.
Although the program is being developed at Nellie’s, the goal is to create a standardized practice within all VAWN women’s shelters to address and support individuals who are experiencing both gender-based violence and substance abuse. Toni-Ann is working on building this program from scratch, and she’s currently in the research stage and working on building out the assessment framework. “The assessments will help us evaluate and see where each organization is currently at with substance use, addictions, and harm reduction within their shelter,” explains Toni-Ann. “Once all the assessments are finished, I’ll take all the information and then give each shelter feedback.” Working alongside Toni-Ann are peer volunteers who have lived experience with gender-based violence or substance use — they’ll be providing feedback on all steps of the process, as well as joining Toni-Ann on the in-shelter assessments starting in January.
After Toni-Ann and her team finish completing the assessments and providing feedback, the next step will be to provide essential training to frontline shelter workers to help them better support their shelter residents. “Because of this intersectionality [of women experiencing substance use and gender-based violence], we’re finding that individuals aren’t accessing services as they should, and it’s creating barriers for women,” says Toni-Ann. “We want to bridge that gap and prepare the workers and VAW shelters to deal with this complex issue.”
Another element of the program that Toni-Ann is looking forward to exploring is how nutrition can be used as a form of harm reduction. “I don’t believe there’s enough conversation around nutrition and how it helps individuals who use substances, wherever they may be in their journey,” explains Toni-Ann. “From a community standpoint and a harm reduction standpoint, I haven’t seen that — so that’s really exciting.”
We’re proud to be starting this innovative and transformative program, and we’re eager to soon be supporting the women at Nellie’s even more effectively. Our goal is that the impact of this program goes far beyond the direct support we provide to our clients — it’s also about challenging the stigma surrounding substance use and harm reduction. “I think it will change a lot within the community, and I think it will change perceptions on harm reduction and substance abuse,” says Toni-Ann.
