A New Trip! Peer’s Half Year Recap

Hi! This is Leandra, one of the new Trip! Peers. Since it’s my first blog post (and the first post overall in a while), I figure I’d introduce myself and list some highlights of my first six months with Trip! Project!

A bit about me: I’m tall, fat, and brown, and I’m a butch trans lesbian. I’ve been community organizing for Filipino youth for the last six years, and I go to lots of DIY shows in the city – you might hear me from afar with my belly laugh or see me throwing my weight around in the pit (if I’m not on shift, that is).

My first Trip! event was Holiday Board Games and Tea, two days before Christmas last year. I waded through soft snow to Bampot – my glasses fogged up from the warmth as soon as I stepped inside. Warm and cozy was the vibe that night – I met Peers and volunteers, drank many cups of tea, got more into a game of Sequence than I expected, and picked up care packages Trip! had put together for everyone who attended. I remember feeling that it was exactly the kind of evening I needed.

Photo of a small table with harm reduction supplies, including: HRT injection kit, safer piercing kits, bowl pipe kits, naloxone, earplugs and a book of harm reduction literature cards for browsing.

At the end of January, I went to a New Friends DIY show with a stacked lineup: And Always, Cease, Botfly, and Life in Vacuum. Trip! happened to be tabling that night, which was a pleasant surprise. The Trip! table was a needed reprieve when the mosh pit got a bit too overwhelming. That night, I learned that volunteer training was starting up in the spring and I knew I wouldn’t miss it.

Volunteer training took place from March to May – and at the end of it I got hired as a Peer! I learned so much from volunteer training: CPR, precautions for overdose prevention, Hep C transmission (pictured: CW blood, needle injury), specific drug interactions, Trip!’s harm reduction principles, and more. The boundaries training in particular helped me advocate for myself in my friendships. At the Anti-Racism & Anti-Oppression Training, I felt safe to speak on transmisogyny in a room where my lived experiences would be listened to and honoured, which often hasn’t been the case. One moment of instructive irony: on a ‘wheel of intersections’ worksheet which illustrated positions of varying privilege, the ableism part of the wheel was hard to read.

Pictured: several flash cards on table grouped into risk categories for catching Hep C. Flash cards say potentially risk behaviour such as touching, sharing toothbrush, chestfeeding, needlestick injury

Finally, I started to go on outreaches in June. I have experience doing outreaches in community organizing, so I haven’t felt completely out of place. My first outreach was at the Trans 4 Toronto benefit show at Houndstooth on June 16th. I was very supported by the volunteers that went with me – it helped that I was among community and friends too.

Wherever I’ve been in a harm reduction space in the city, I mention I’m a new Trip! Peer and people’s eyes light up. In these interactions, I really feel the collective impact of Trip!’s work over the last 30 years. I’ve met former volunteers from the early 2010s, learned that some of my friends used to go to Trip! drop-ins, and found Trip! literature in DIY house shows. It’s been rewarding, fulfilling, and special to be a part of it, and I’m really excited to be a part of this new era of Trip! Project! See you around! <3

– Leandra, Trip! Peer

Trip! Project’s community-based evaluation ‘Aligning Diverse Community Needs for a Youth Harm Reduction Program Model”

Please join us at Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre (168 Bathurst St) on October 23rd, 4pm to 6pm, as we explore the learnings from Trip! Project’s community-based evaluation ‘Aligning Diverse Community Needs for a Youth Harm Reduction Program Model’.

Young people’s access to relevant and meaningful harm reduction services is critical to supporting and enabling safer drug use practices amongst youth:

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Job Posting for Community Researcher – Trip! Project Evaluation

 

 

 

 

Peer Researcher
Part-time Contract Position

The Centre for Community Based Research (CCBR) is an independent, non-profit organization
with almost 40 years of experience in community research. CCBR, in partnership with the Trip!
Project at Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre is seeking to hire a community
researcher to assist with participatory evaluation of Trip!. The Trip! Project is a youth-led harm
reduction health information service for the dance music scene and youth who use drugs. Trip!
provides workshops, trains peer educators and volunteers, operates outreach booths, and uses
social media to engage with partiers.

Under the guidance of a multi-stakeholder steering committee, CCBR and Trip! will work
together to co-design and conduct a community-based evaluation to explore the alignment
between the Trip! program and current drug using trends amongst diverse young people. The
evaluation will inform recommendations for future program delivery.

The peer researcher will act as a co-researcher at each stage of the evaluation. Peer
researchers are essential to participatory research as they bring invaluable knowledge and
expertise through their lived experience. The term “peer researcher” can mean many different
things depending on the context. In this project, we use the term “peer” to refer to a young
person (under the age of 30) who has drug use experience. Ideally, we’re also looking for
someone who has had some experience (past or present) with the Trip! program but this is not
mandatory. Continue reading