People First Radio is a weekly one-hour radio broadcast to educate and raise awareness about issues related to health and wellness — with a particular emphasis on topics related to mental illness and mental health, homelessness and housing, and addiction, harm reduction and recovery.
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The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction(CCSA) has shared a resource meant to help smaller Canadian cities address substance use harms. “The Playbook for Action has over 50 evidence-based interventions that a community could draw from,” said Chandni Sondagar, a senior knowledge broker with the organization. The playbook is a document outlining a number […]
Peers Victoria Resources Society recently marked its 30th anniversary. The organization helps sex workers in the capital region. “Sex workers in our area often can encounter stigma when accessing health and social support,” said Executive Director Leigh Elliot. “So folks may not feel comfortable disclosing the work that they do, which can limit the sort […]
A team at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction is working on a framework for a standardized unit of THC in Canada. “The concentration of THC found in cannabis has really increased over time,” said Shea Wood, a senior knowledge broker at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. “Compared to some […]
A project from UBC’s Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) team has identified public land across the province and scored it for housing potential. HART Associate Director Craig Jones spoke with People First Radio about the map. “Anybody in B.C, I don’t care if you are a community member, in government, in a non-profit builder, for-profit […]
A team in the Comox Valley has been working to understand and address the barriers faced by people when they visit the hospital. Sharon Karsten, a professor at Vancouver Island University, and Christohper Hauschild, a Mitacs research fellow employed by VIU, are involved with Walk With Me, a community engaged research project. One of its […]
During the outbreak of a new and potentially fatal disease in Toronto in 2003, it fell to psychiatrists Bob Maunder and Jon Hunter to help people in the SARS ward cope. The two have been focusing on coping in their professional lives ever since, and have recently co-authored a book on the subject, Coping: Fix […]
Journalist and author Jessica Barrett argues we can’t solve our housing crisis until we solve our crisis of home. Barrett is the author of No Place Like Home: The Missing Key to Our Housing Crisis, which combines a macro view of the Canadian housing landscape with stories of individual people – including Barrett. Over a […]
A group out of UBC says distraction blocking apps are often marketed at neurodiverse people, but little is known about how they are actually used. Kevin Chow and Marvel Hariadi were among the authors of a study that looked into the issue. They spoke with People First Radio about digital well being tools and inclusivity. […]
A UBC law prof argues that homelessness in Canada is governed by a patchwork of municipal bylaws. Alexandra Flynn is co-author of The Bylaw State, a book that explores municipal government responses to homeless encampments from a legal perspective. Flynn says that the idea for the book came when she and coauthor Joe Hermer were […]
After a decade of work with vulnerable populations, Cory Herzog-Fequet went back to school looking to help shine light on a structural issue. “It’s very meaningful to work one-on-one with people, but…you just see the same issues over and over and over perpetuating indefinitely because they’re systemic and they’re structural,” he said. “I focused on […]
After years of construction work, new shelter space is expected to open this month in downtown Nanaimo. The Salvation Army Centre of Hope is located at 19 Nicol St. Formerly known as the New Hope Centre, it houses a shelter and other support programming. Construction has been ongoing since 2023 for a new four story […]
Yo Bro Yo Girl co-founder Joe Calendino is working to prevent young people from leading the life he used to live. A few decades back, Calendino was a full patch member of the Hell’s Angels. Dealing with drug addiction, and involved in a high profile fight in a Kelowna casino in 2005, he was kicked […]
A new audio drama airing on Radio Sidney tells a story of elder financial abuse. Beware Mysterious Mark is a 10 part series airing Thursdays through July. Producer Bill Collins spoke with People First Radio about the play, and the issue it seeks to bring awareness to. “It is a traditional kind of radio play. […]
When it opened in 1921, the Weyburn Mental Hospital was hailed as the last and largest asylum in the British Commonwealth. Managing Madness co-author Erika Dyck writes that in the beginning, it was a symbol of both progress and a bygone era, embodying a set of contradictions from the outset. Dyck is a Canada Research […]
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Dr. Jill Wiwcharuk has been practicing medicine for 15 years, largely working with people living on the streets. Since December, she’s added a new dimension to her work, social media influencer. Wiwcharuk posts under the handle streetdrjill. On Instagram, she has more than 75,000 followers at the time of writing. Her videos cover topics related […]
A Nanaimo supportive housing site celebrated a decade of giving people a home in the community. On a sunny April day, staff and residents at Boundary came together for a 10th anniversary BBQ. Boundary is in central Nanaimo near the hospital, it’s run by Vancouver Island Mental Health Society(VIMHS), the organization behind People First Radio. […]
Erin Dej, associate professor in the department of criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University, has been helping craft a curriculum to teach high school students about homelessness. “We recognize that young people are seeing homelessness, that they are aware of it, and they have questions,” Dej said. “We wanted to create curriculum to help them work […]
Bernie Pauly of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the University of Victoria speaks about how the toxic drug crisis has unfolded over 10 years as a declared public health emergency. Also featuring the voices of Amanda Farrell-Low, Stephanie Harrington, and Sarah Lee.
Trevor Wideman, a postdoctoral researcher at Vancouver Island University, is looking at municipal governance and health policy, and how it interacts with the toxic drug and housing crises. Christopher Hauchildt is operations coordinator for a community engaged research project called Walk With Me. The two of them spoke with People First Radio about Walk With […]
Gabriola Island playwright Frank Moher is putting his own story on this stage. Boy Player chronicles the author’s experience of being orphaned and moving across a continent in his youth. It’s the third in a series of shows from Western Edge Theatre exploring themes of men’s mental health. Moher visited CHLY to speak about the […]
A University of Victoria PhD student is looking at the intersection between chronic pain and sexuality. “ I’m really looking at understanding people’s stories and experiences. And what I want to understand is how chronic pain affects sexuality and identity in people that live with chronic pain,” said Jenise Finlay, speaking to People First Radio from […]
Ann Livingston has spent decades helping drug user groups organize. In the 1990s, she helped co-found the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and is currently working with the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users (NANDU). “ A drug user group in the simplest mission statement is to improve the lives of people who have not […]
Lexie Morgan is a registered clinical counsellor. She does work with the Sea to Sky chapter of a group called Mountain Muskox, which offers support to people who have experienced trauma or loss in the mountains. She spoke with People First Radio about the group and her work. When someone had experienced a traumatic event, […]
Writer Jordan Kawchuk is preparing to speak as a lived experience speaker at a Nanaimo Foundation event called Rethinking Drinking. “My lived experience is that I’ve been to treatment many times and I wrestle with alcohol use disorder,” he said. “I hope to that the community can see that alcohol use disorder is a disease. […]
