Program Types: Community Wellness, Health Services, Resources,

Breaking The Ice: Call for Peer Workers

What you’ll do:

  • Community outreach
  • Plan and execute programs
  • Support 2SLGBTQ+ people who use drugs through drop-ins, kit-making, and harm reduction events.

What skills you’ll bring:

  • Lived experience of substance use (specifically crystal meth)
  • An interest in outreach, building relationships, and developing harm reduction strategies that best address community needs.How to apply:

Apply online at: The519.org/bti-pwa 

Apply in person: at The 519 [519 Church St] during operation hours 9am to 9pm (week days), 9am to 5pm (weekends)

Deadline: apply no later than August 21, 2024.

For questions or support with applying: contact Jordan: JThorne@The519.org, or call 647-453-8955.

About the project

Breaking The Ice (BTI) is a community engagement and outreach program focused on supporting people who use crystal meth in Toronto’s Downtown East. The team has a specific focus on understanding the needs and barriers faced by 2SLGBTQ+ people who use drugs.

Peer-led and rooted in principles of harm reduction and anti-violence, the team:

  • engages in regular street outreach,
  • develops resources pertinent to community needs, and
  • develops and delivers groups, workshops, and activities to both strengthen community capacity, as well as foster self-determination and agency in the folks we work with.

The BTI team also acts as a hub for referrals to case management, housing, mental and physical health services, and broadly supports diverse community needs for people who use drugs.

Resources

International Overdose Awareness Day (Toronto) 2021

Footage taken from various events surrounding International Overdose Awareness Day 2021 around Toronto.

Letters to Meth

Part of the first phase of BTI, ‘Letters to Meth’ is an artistic project that showcases the tensions, contradictions, triumphs, and struggles of our communities in their relationship to crystal meth. The aim of this piece – a collection of letters to meth – is to work towards reducing the pervasive stigma and shame surrounding methamphetamine use. The tool is available as a zine as well as in audio-visual form.

Download the Letters to Meth Zine (PDF version)

Crystal After-Care Resource Insert

This insert has been created for our crystal after-care kit that we hand out to our community members which also includes gum, lip balm, candy, rolling papers to help facilitate the cruel come-down of crystal meth. Read more here.

Gallery

A hand holding flyers printed in colourful paper

Flyers promoting our focus groups during the early stages of the project, 2019

Someone's hands while they paste words cut from magazines on a white paper.

‘Letters to Meth’ zine-making sessions, 2019

A white board with different quotes pasted to it and titles on top of them that read "the experience" "information" "Gaps and barriers" "stigma""LGBTQ2S"

Breaking the Ice Community Knowledge Share, 2019

A person holding a mic and talking, in front of them an artistic installation of an umbrella with different words and cristal pipes hanging.

Breaking the Ice Community Knowledge Share, 2019. Discussing the barriers faced while accessing critical services.

Breaking the Ice is funded by the Toronto Urban Health Fund. If you have questions or would like to know more, contact us at Ice@The519.org.