Grant: Project Grant

In January 2020, our team hosted the 'Side by Side Summit: A community dialogue' with 17 youth of diverse gender, sexuality, and racial identities who use crystal methamphetamine and other amphetamine-type stimulants (CM/ATS) in Vancouver, BC, to engage in a community dialogue about how the lives of those who use CM/ATS can be improved. Our Youth Advisory Committee co-organized and -facilitated the January 2020 Summit leading to the development of the current proposal. Ultimately, participants from the Summit identified that knowledge gaps in this area have severely limited our capacity to design, implement and evaluate interventions that are culturally safe for diverse genders, sexual identities and for youth who are racialized and exposed to living on the streets. The current proposal aims to fill these gaps. To do so, we will launch a three-year community-based qualitative study. Through longitudinal interviews, we will document the evolving experiences of approximately 30 young people. We will also conduct ethnographic fieldwork activities in a number of treatment and care settings frequented by youth who use CM/ATS to further our understanding of youths' experiences in and across these settings over the study period. We will also conduct interviews with 10 stakeholders each year. Finally, we will host additional annual Side by Side Summits to advance dialogue on study findings and inform promising approaches to intervention. All of our team's activities will be guided by the ARYS Youth Advisory Committee, a capacity-building team made up of youth with diverse substance use histories.