National Addiction Awareness Week - Timmins

Please join us for this important conversation and workshop with local harm reductionists and guest speakers; Scott Neufeld and Michelle Couture (Mish).

The goal of the workshop is to meet others who are interested in learning about Harm Reduction. Participants will collaborate to create actionable steps to improving health and social care options for community members who use drugs.

Lecture & Workshop Focus:

(Anti)Stigmacraft: Understanding and responding to harm reduction backlash.

In order to counter public and political stigma towards people who are marginalized, we first need to understand the context, shape, and function of their exclusion. In this talk, Dr. Neufeld will contextualize recent backlash and rollback of substance use-related harm reduction support from all three levels of government as an example of what sociologist Imogen Tyler calls "stigmacraft", the deliberate political mobilization of stigma to sow fear, division, and ultimately increase political power.

Resistance to harm reduction supports has a long history in Canada, as does counter-resistance. In these changing times, we will need to inspire a new generation of grassroots activism and support fights for the rights and dignity of people who use drugs and pushes back against the politics of exclusion with antistigmacraft: the strategic use of messaging, advocacy, and mutual aid to build an inclusive community where everyone deserve to have their needs met.

Speaker Info:
Dr. Scott Neufeld (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Community Psychology at Brock University. He has a PhD in Social Psychology from Simon Fraser University and has lived in the Niagara Region of Ontario with his family since 2021. His research, knowledge mobilization and organizing work focuses on two key areas: 1) developing an understanding of substance use stigma and how it can be undone that acknowledges the structural, political, historical and intersectional dimensions of stigma and 2) working towards the equitable empowerment and inclusion of people who use(d) drugs in research, policy-making and service provision that impacts them. He has been privileged to collaborate with people who use(d) drugs on research and organizing in Vancouver, BC's Downtown Eastside (e.g. VANDU, WAHRS) and more recently in St. Catharines, Ontario with the Niagara Advocates with Lived and Living Experience (NALE). He regularly shares his research and thinking on addressing substance use stigma with public health organizations across Ontario. He lives with his family on the ancestral territories of the Chonnonton, Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples under the terms of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum agreement in St. Catharines, ON.

Mish(she/her) has been a harm reduction and street outreach worker in Timmins for the past five years. Born and raised in Northern Ontario, people's stories have always fascinated her and being able to hold people's stories close to her heart and mind is a definite asset she has while working with vulnerable individuals in Timmins. On a personal level, Mish has recently lost her person to the unregulated drug supply. This loss has only furthered her determination to see the stigma, shame and systems associated with people who use drugs dismantled from society. Mish is grateful for all the folks in community, for their expertise, teachings and important conversations - and for their stories.