About

Our mission

Connecting individuals, families, organizations, businesses, and leaders to work together to promote health and well-being and address the toxic drug crisis for the City of Greater Sudbury.

Our vision

The vision of the Community Drug Strategy (CDS) is a community working together to improve the health, safety, and well-being of all individuals, families, and neighbourhoods in Greater Sudbury by reducing substance-related harms.

The Community Drug Strategy is actively working to

Improve community health and address substance-related issues by increasing public awareness of substance use health and the substance use spectrum, and providing a range of services, including treatment and harm reduction to meet people where there are at in their relationship with substances.
Encourage partnerships and collaboration among municipal government, academia, legal, health and human services sectors, the private sector, and the community to share the responsibility for the development and implementation of substance-related strategies and responses.
Address stigma (Health Canada) at the personal, social, and structural level through education and policy change.
Address social needs of all community members by decreasing barriers to social services, housing, and other support programs.
Increase community safety across Greater Sudbury by implementing evidence-informed, drug-related crime prevention initiatives.
Encourage a developmental asset building approach to prevention and community development.
Ensure ongoing monitoring and evaluation of this strategy.
Encourage all levels of government to act and take responsibility for their elements of the framework within their respective jurisdiction.

Guiding principles

The following principles reflect the key values and beliefs that shape and direct the actions of the Community Drug Strategy for Greater Sudbury:

Honouring the voices of people with lived and living experience: We centre our efforts on the needs and voices of the individuals and communities most impacted by drug toxicity, involving them in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of our initiatives and honouring their experience and expertise.
Valuing Indigenous perspectives: We honour and value Indigenous knowledge and perspectives, ensuring culturally informed approaches.
Collaborative engagement: We value collaborative and inclusive engagement with stakeholders from diverse sectors, recognizing that addressing drug toxicity crises requires a unified effort.
Compassion and empathy: We uphold a culture of compassion and empathy, acknowledging the humanity of individuals affected by drug toxicity. We strive to create a safe and non-judgmental environment where all views will be heard.
Respect for individual choices and realities: We recognize that the path of abstinence is not universally applicable. We embrace the diverse realities of individuals who use drugs. Our focus is on ensuring the safety and well-being of people who use drugs by combatting the toxic drug supply, while respecting individual autonomy and creating a community in which individuals can live their lives with dignity, minimizing and mitigating societal harm.
Transparency and accountability: We prioritize transparency in our actions, decisions, and communication, and we hold ourselves accountable to the communities we serve.
Innovation and adaptability: We embrace innovation and are open to exploring new approaches and technologies to address the evolving challenges and context of the drug toxicity crisis, based on local needs.
Stigma reduction: We actively work to reduce stigma associated with substance use and prioritize destigmatizing conversations around drug toxicity, fostering a culture of understanding and support.
Long-term impact: We are focused on creating sustainable, long-term solutions that address the root causes of drug toxicity crises and contribute to the overall well-being of communities.

Key priorities

Promote awareness among all sectors of the issue and impacts of structural stigma and support practices and policies to promote inclusion and change norms, ensuring everyone is treated with dignity and respect.
Create new, and improve existing, partnerships to identify gaps and leverage and amplify efforts, promoting connections and collaboration between sectors.
Enhance care pathways to ensure client-centred approaches, facilitating seamless client transition between services along the substance use continuum.
Establish structures and processes to regularly connect stakeholders who are engaged in actioning solutions.
Seek commitment from all sectors to decolonize practices, committing to reviewing and modifying existing policies and practices to promote equitable access for BIPOC populations to services and resources.
Take action to provide safe spaces for all who access wrap-around, harm reduction, and treatment services.
Proactively seek out funding opportunities and identify where existing funding could be repurposed or reallocated to address priorities.
Collectively identify priority areas of focus and systematically coordinate investments.

For further information on the priorities related to the three streams of the Greater Sudbury Summit on Toxic Drugs read the Summit report, Honouring Voices, Embracing Perspectives, Moving Forward: A Summary Report on the Greater Sudbury Summit on Toxic Drugs (PDF).

This item was last modified on July 9, 2024