Community Navigator - Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada - Sanguen Health Centre
3 weeks ago
Description
Community NavigatorSanguen Health Centre - Safer Supply Program
Job Type:
Full-time, contract position until March 31, 2024
Reports to:
Director of Peer & Community Development
Deadline to Express Interest:
This posting will remain active until the position is filled
About Sanguen Health Centre
Sanguen Health Centre exists to improve individual and community well-being by providing health and social care for people who face barriers to accessing traditional supports.
Our mission is to meet the needs of those in Waterloo Region and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph living with or at risk of Hepatitis C through the provision of education, outreach, support, and comprehensive, expert medical care.
Our vision is to create a future where everyone in our community is empowered, accepted, and cared for in the way they need to thrive.
About the Safer Supply Program
The primary focus of the Safer Supply program is flexible, low-barrier access to pharmaceutical opioids through a health equity and harm reduction lens for 200 people.
This alliance, as a collective, provides intensive place-based and mobile primary health care, housing, shelter, and social connections to people experiencing precarious housing, poverty and complex health and mental health.
Sanguen Health Centre, and the ICHA, work from a trauma-informed, person-centred and harm reduction approach.The Safer Supply program aims to provide essential services to people who use substances by providing prescribed alternatives to street level drugs, managing other health care needs with a goal to reduce overdose-related harms and overdose deaths.
Summary of the Role
As a member of the interdisciplinary team, the Community Navigator in the Safer Supply Program works with a team of practitioners to support social and health care needs from a harm reduction model approach to people who experience complications related to substance use and complex health/mental health needs.
The Community Navigator role assists in the provision of direct patient care and community services to improve the well-being and support the stability of individuals in the Safer Supply Program.
The Community Navigator in the Safer Supply program must be able utilize a variety of skills and methods including direct client care, community outreach, health promotion and harm reduction education, de-escalation, as well as system navigation and advocacy.
The main area of focus for this role is to offer education on harm reduction best practices and support the prevention of opioid overdoses and other harms associated with the toxic illicit drug supply in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.
Accountabilities
Accountabilities of the Community Navigator include, but are not limited to:
- Plan and coordinate harm reduction education and delivery to Safer Supply clients.
- Distribution and tracking of harm reduction supplies and materials.
- Data input to maintain accurate statistics and activity reports.
- Submit program evaluations and related reports as required.
- Assist in the development, facilitation and support of the Peer Advisory Committee and Peer Employment.
- Support clinic activities including, but not limited to, distribute harm reduction supplies, client intakes, triaging clinic needs, and acute system navigation.
- Provide shortterm clinic and communitybased outreach support for Safer Supply clients (i.e. support in obtaining identification, resume development, food security, etc.).
Qualifications
- Strong knowledge of applied harm reduction concepts and practices, particularly as relevant to people who use drugs. Personal or lived experience is an asset.
- Experience with crisis deescalation and conflict resolution.
- Committed to maintaining excellent personal and professional boundaries while providing accepting, nonjudgmental service and support.
- Knowledge of the Social Determinants of Health and their impact on people who use drugs.
- Knowledge of relevant and local social, health, and treatment services available to people who use drugs (i.e., Ontario Works, Ontario Disability, Consumption and Treatment services, Legal Aid, Identification clinics, etc.).
- Valid driver's license, access to own vehicle, and insurance or equivalent regional transit pass. This will be required to complete core responsibilities of the role.
- Experience working with people who use drugs, as service users and as colleagues.
Hours and Location of Work
Working hours will be 40 hours per week, primarily daytime hours, with the possibility of occasional weekend and evening hours as demanded by the nature of the work.
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