Title: Harm Reduction & Examining How Systems Create Harm
Training Description:
Rather than focus on individual behaviour, our approach to harm reduction focuses on how systems create and exacerbate harms to people who use drugs and other oppressed groups, often by design and with intent. This session will be an introduction to Harm Reduction; definition, principals and examples.
In this session, we will also look at how racism and colonialism are built into our institutions, our own roles in these systems, and how best to serve people today while working for systemic change. We know that it is not enough to be non-racist, but that we must be actively anti-racist every day.
Schedule: Tuesday, July 7, 2026, 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Format: In Person
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this training, participants will have
- Increased knowledge of Harm Reduction: definition, examples, principles
Challenge the concept of ‘non-judgmental care’ & how values and beliefs contextualize our work - Increased knowledge of risk-taking & why we engage in behaviours that we know could harm us
- Apply the CARES model (Person-Centered Care, Advocacy, Referrals, Education, Supply Distribution)
- Increased knowledge of how social structures, systems, policies, and practices make substance use harmful including prohibition and colonization
- Increased knowledge of how social structures impact our substance use decisions
Who Should Attend?
- Community members interested in improving their capacity to work with people impacted by substance use and misuse
- People who use drugs and other substances
- Service providers who work with people who use drugs including: Physicians, EMS, Primary Health Care Staff, Public Health Staff, Acute Care Staff, Mental Health Workers, Home Care Staff, Community Outreach Workers, Addictions Workers, Social Workers, Corrections & Probations
- Government & community service workers, outside of health, that work with people who use drugs including: EIA workers, CFS workers, Town employees, Educators, etc.
Trainer: Shohan Illsley
Trainer Bio:
Shohan Illsley was raised in Northern Manitoba; The Pas, Opaskwayak Cree Nation, and Churchill. Her grandparents are settlers from Iceland, Scotland, and England. She is married to her high school sweetheart and is the mother of four children and grandmother to one grandchild. She resides with her family in Winnipeg. Shohan and her husband are raising their children with Indigenous knowledge and ceremony. They work everyday to incorporate the resistance of colonization and residential school into their children’s identity.
Shohan is the Executive Director of the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network and has worked in harm reduction since 2000. Her work experience has included working with people who use drugs that are impacted by structural and colonial violence. Shohan works from the foundation that people are experts in their own lives.
Shohan has been facilitating harm reduction training since 2007 and the training has evolved to be delivered through an anti-racism and anti-oppression lens. Focusing on system harms, this training looks at more than individuals’ substance use and is called “Harm Reduction 3.0, Beyond the Needle!”
Shohan completed a Master’s of Science at the University of Manitoba. She was the recipient of a CIHR grant which funded a community based research project titled “What goes around: How peers use their social networks to share STBBI education and information.” Shohan has since been the recipient of 2 additional CIHR grants.
Have Questions?
Contact Adesuwa Ero:
- Email: training@endhomelessnesswinnipeg.ca
- Phone: 204 793-5088