Reach and Impact of Harm Reduction Services for People Who Use Drugs
The need:
AIDS Vancouver Island (AVI) offers a range of harm reduction programs to reduce the spread of blood-borne illnesses and curb the overdose crisis among people who use drugs. The organization needed data to support a funding proposal. They wanted to demonstrate the need for harm reduction services on the Island and to determine the difference their programs were making.
What we did:
We designed a mixed-methods approach to: document service gaps for people who use drugs on Vancouver Island; quantify the reach of AVI’s services; and measure the impact of their work. Working closely with organization staff, creative data collection methods were designed to ensure our approach was appropriate and culturally responsive. Our analysis and recommendations supported the organization to successfully obtain multi-year funding to expand and sustain their harm reduction services.
Services:
Needs Assessment
Outcome Evaluation
Capacity Building
Impact Areas:
Harm Reduction
Mental Health and Substance Use
What our client had to say:
“Elayne is a highly competent evaluation professional who is also a pleasure to work with. We have benefited tremendously from Elayne’s expertise for more than 10 years now. She has worked closely with team members to develop evaluation tools that really worked for our target population. She also supported staff to use the tools effectively. She is an excellent writer with the ability to synthesize information to produce a range of comprehensive evaluation documents with actionable recommendations.”
KATRINA JENSEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AVI HEALTH AND COMMUNITY SERVICES
