Grant: Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

This research centrally involves Indigenous knowledge keepers as advisors in conducting our project on Lekwungen Territory and engages with Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth as co-researchers. Youth in Canada are experiencing the fastest growing rates of opioid use disorder and mental illness; we know that youth who are marginalized based on their sex, gender, sexuality, race, poverty, Indigeneity, and/or have experience with the child welfare system are overrepresented in these numbers. Yet, few resources exist that integrate diverse youth voices into substance use and mental health service design that meet their unique needs. This community-based research project will address this gap, by working with youth who have lived and living experiences of substance use and mental health challenges. We will first establish a leadership circle that will engage a diverse group of youth including Indigenous, non-Indigenous, immigrant and refugee, LGBTQIA+, and pregnant and parenting youth, who received services from our local community partners. We will use the arts-based 'cultural probe' data collection method to create mixed-media diaries that respond to questions like 'How do you access services in your community? What barriers do you encounter?' and 'What resources would you like that will help you be healthy?' and invite the youth to discuss their diaries during interviews. Together we will co-create a collective vision for more meaningful and accessible substance use and mental health services, grounded in each person's own experience and recommendations. This vision will be translated into an intervention to pilot, implement, and evaluate at the Victoria Youth Clinic (Foundry Victoria) - and will inform implementation strategies for the ten other Foundry Centres across British Columbia.