More compassion vital to addressing local drug crisis
By Ry Clarke - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on November 10, 2022.
Downtown Lethbridge Business Revitalization Zone, the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce, and the City of Lethbridge held the second instalment of its Downtown Safety Education and Information Sessions Tuesday at CASA.The session focused on understanding the drug crisis with Jacen Abrey, director of the Indigenous Recovery Coaching Program (IRC), and Samantha Scout, program coordinator for IRC.
The IRC is a recovery-oriented community-based recovery coaching program that focuses on supporting individuals in recovery from opioid or methamphetamine use in the Lethbridge area. Located at 1206 6 Avenue South the program looks to its vision, restoring connection to the old life with new experiences from a shared spirit of Niitsitapi, and empowering individuals toward recovery with cultural guidance.
“We have peer support workers that are there to recruit. Their job is to come out to the community, connect with the people, and invite them back to us,” said Scout. “Right now we have six Indigenous Recovery Coaches, and their role is to provide support for people actively working towards recovery. Through detox all the way up to treatment.”
Speaking to the cycle of drug use, Abrey says that without a housing solution the drug issue will continue, noting that when individuals have nowhere to go coming out of rehabilitation, they relapse because they end up back on the streets.
“If we don’t break the cycle, it is going to continue. Right now, we just don’t have the compassion,” said Abrey. “I have taken it upon myself to go out and work in the encampment. When that encampment was set up, I could tell you who was sitting in every tent, what drug they may have taken. Now they want to do a mass count of the homeless, but now we scattered the homeless throughout the city.”
IRC spoke to the relationship they have established with their clientele over time.
“In August and September, we had over 400 people walk through our doors,” said Scout. “All it took was getting out there on your feet and getting in the community. Showing your face and introducing yourself and being genuine.”
Working from a humanitarian point-of-view, the IRC works with addictions on a human level, employing compassion to help those in need to overcome their addictions.
“It doesn’t matter as an Indigenous or non-Indigenous person, it is who you are and where you are from that you need to retrain yourself to your core,” said Abrey. 2
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