Positive Living Society of British Columbia

People and communities in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC) have been profoundly impacted by the toxic drug crisis, which has driven a province-wide public health emergency since 2016. In 2023, BC implemented a "Decriminalization Pilot," which temporarily removed criminal sanctions for the possession of small amounts of certain substances. In May 2024, the Decriminalization Pilot was amended to exclude its application in almost any urban outdoor space; a reform colloquially referred to as "Recriminalization." This study sought to address gaps in understanding how law enforcement practices towards people who use criminalized drugs may have changed during the Decriminalization Pilot and subsequent Recriminalization periods. We undertook a community-based, qualitative study. We conducted 21 interviews with people who use criminalized drugs and who interacted with law enforcement in Vancouver between January and May 2025. We employed combined reflexive thematic and interpretative phenomenological analyses. We derived five main themes: 1) confusion over the Decriminalization Pilot; 2) selective enforcement and pervasiveness of policing; 3) police interference with overdose response and other public health interventions; 4) seizures of belongings, including government-supplied resources; and 5) displacement from public space. Our findings illustrate how harmful law enforcement practices that target people who use criminalized drugs, particularly those relying on public spaces for survival, persisted during the evolving drug policy periods. Together, these law enforcement practices along with the lack of understanding regarding the shifting Decriminalization Pilot, may have undermined the potential success of a policy dedicated to decriminalizing drug possession in BC.

Street sweeps, involving the state-enforced removal of makeshift residences and confiscation of personal belongings from people in public spaces, are a common tool employed by urban governments to address public health and safety concerns. Amidst the ongoing housing and toxic drug poisoning crises in Vancouver, Canada, we sought to characterize experiences of confiscation of personal belongings by city workers among unstably-housed people who use drugs people who use drugs. Cohort study. We used multivariable generalized estimating equations models to longitudinal data derived from unstably-housed people who use drugs (including those reporting homelessness and living in single room occupancy hotels) participating in three harmonized cohort studies of community-recruited people who use drugs in Vancouver in 2021-2023. In total, 13.6% of 691 eligible participants (and 23.6% of 233 reporting homelessness) reported municipal government-enforced belonging confiscation in the past six months at least once. In multivariable analyses, violent victimization (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=2.14; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.27, 3.60) and inability to access health/social services (AOR=2.19, 95% CI: 1.32, 3.65) were significantly and positively associated with belonging confiscation, and so was non-fatal overdose (AOR=1.94, 95% CI: 1.01, 3.74) among those reporting homelessness. Findings underscore that confiscation of belongings was relatively widespread among our cohort of people who use drugs and concentrated among individuals who are structurally marginalized, emphasizing the need to end street sweeps and prioritize development of dignified housing and harm reduction policies involving affected communities in decision-making.

ABSTRACTPeople with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are high utilisers of acute psychiatric services (i.e., psychiatric emergency and inpatient services). Yet, people with BPD often encounter significant stigma in these settings, which can result in demoralisation and reluctance to seek further care. Peer support services are increasingly adopted to align mental health services with recovery‐oriented principles. This study aimed to understand the perceived acceptability, opportunities and challenges of integrating peer support for people with BPD in acute psychiatric services. We invited people with lived experience (i.e., people with symptoms of BPD and their loved ones) and mental health professionals who provide care for people with BPD to participate in an online survey. We received 41 quantitative responses and 25 responses to open‐ended questions. Peer support was rated as important by people with lived experience and providers. Themes extracted via thematic analysis from the open‐text responses considered how peer support would (or would not) meet patients' needs, including: feeling seen, heard and understood; fostering a sense of connection and belonging; reducing negative or stigmatising experiences; accessing instrumental and informational support; experiencing a sense of psychological safety; and enhancing a sense of hope. Most responses saw peer support as well matched to these needs; however, some expressed possible implementation challenges, including staffing consistency, role confusion and incompatibility of crisis stabilisation versus recovery goals. Overall, results underscored the potential of peer support to enhance alignment with recovery‐oriented practice, which is an organisational priority for many mental health services.

Public transportation is fundamental for people with disabilities to access meaningful opportunities. However, their access to public transit is still limited, partly due to the policies establishing the accessibility requirements of public transportation services. We conducted a policy scan analysis of the local, provincial/state, and federal public transportation policies in Canada and the United States. With this scan, we analyzed the policies’ aims, the definition of disabilities, and the content of those policies. The policy analysis revealed that the definition of disability was inconsistent across jurisdictions, creating a discrepancy between those who have access to accessible transport and those who do not. The analysis also showed that policies in the United States and Canada mainly focused on the built environment, the adaptations of vehicles, and the provision of services. In contrast, only a few policies covered social accessibility, such as interaction with the staff, which underscores a significant policy gap and suggests the need for more training requirements in the policies. Funding to transport agencies for people with disabilities was also a missing piece highlighted in this comparative analysis, particularly in Canada. Policymakers need to develop funding mechanisms to ensure a better implementation of accessibility in services and infrastructure.

Dog training is an unregulated profession in Canada without licensing or standardized practices, yet professional dog trainers greatly influence how guardians interact with their dogs and, by extension, dog welfare. We conducted an online survey to characterize the demographics, qualifications, services, methods, and views of dog trainers in Canada. Of the 706 valid respondents, most (65%) had completed at least one structured dog training program, while 33% were self-educated. Respondents held qualifications from 138 training programs and 39 exam-based certifications that differed in their curriculum, duration, and scope. We identified over 80 different themes or terms that trainers use to describe their practices, with the most frequent relating to reward-based methods. Most respondents also indicated that they would be unlikely to use aversive collars. These findings suggest that reward-based methods are likely the most prevalent in Canada. Two-thirds (62%) supported some regulation of dog training. The quantity and variety of training programs, certifications, and terminology utilized by dog trainers could present challenges for dog guardians in selecting trainers, and/or result in the use of harmful training methods. These findings can inform further development of best practices, educational programs, and advocacy to advance the use of humane training methods.

Like many forage fish species, Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes personatus) play a key role in nearshore marine ecosystems as an important prey source for a diverse array of predators in the northeastern Pacific. However, the primary threats to Pacific sand lance and their habitat are poorly defined due to a lack of systematic data. Crucial information needed to assess their population status is also lacking including basic knowledge of their local and regional abundance and distribution. Sand lance are currently listed as ‘not evaluated’ under the IUCN red list and they have not been assessed by US and Canadian agencies. This hampers management and policy efforts focused on their conservation. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a three-part, structured expert elicitation to assess the vulnerability of Salish Sea sand lance populations. Experts were asked to list and rank key threats to Salish Sea sand lance and/or their habitat, to further quantify the vulnerability of sand lance to identified threats using a vulnerability matrix, and to predict the population trajectory in 25 years from today. Impacts associated with climate change (e.g. sea level rise, sea temperature rise, ocean acidification, and extreme weather) consistently ranked high as threats of concern in the ranking exercise and quantified vulnerability scores. Nearly every expert predicted the population will have declined from current levels in 25 years. These results suggest sand lance face numerous threats and may be in decline under current conditions. This research provides vital information about which threats pose the greatest risk to the long-term health of sand lance populations and their habitat. Managers can use this information to prioritize which threats to address. Future research to reliably quantify population size, better understand the roles of natural and anthropogenic impacts, and to identify the most cost-effective actions to mitigate multiple threats, is recommended.

ABSTRACT Receptivity to our patients’ experience is a vital aspect of the psychoanalytic endeavor. As we receive incoming transmissions, we resonate with what is active in the patient. We hope to then jointly metabolize the experience. When we meet neurodiversity, realms of experience emerge that may elude us. Precipitously formulated ideas in the therapist, based on a neurotypical frame of reference, can impinge upon the discovery of our patients’ authentic world. How do we open ourselves to receive their true experience? This clinical narrative tracks the psychoanalytic travels of an individual who identifies as neurodivergent, who helped the therapist learn to deepen receptivity by dipping into a less differentiated place to follow the here-and-now experience from the bottom up. Throughout the journey, interweaving neuroscientific and psychoanalytic perspectives offered a powerful matrix from which an enriched understanding of our process could emerge. Psychoanalytic concepts including evenly suspended attention, unconscious-to-unconscious communication, alpha function, reverie, and negative capability are explored alongside neuroscientific insights into the stress response, mirror neurons, and the default mode network. A predictive coding lens introduced a view of the therapeutic exchange as a continuous reciprocal prediction, evoking the hypothesis that deepening receptivity required opening awareness to incoming signals and lessening the hold of prior predictions. To bring greater therapist awareness to the present moment and lessen the influence of self-referential evaluation, neuroscientifically-informed reflections also inspired the practice of mindfulness. Subsequent developments suggest that these approaches helped deepen receptivity to the experiences being communicated, leading to new understandings with transformative potential.

Sustainable lifestyles and behaviour changes can be vital in climate change mitigation. Various disciplines analyse the potential for such changes – but without much interaction. Qualitative studies look into the change process (e.g. social practice theory), while quantitative studies often focus on their impact in stylised cases (e.g. energy modelling). A more holistic approach can provide insightful scenarios with diverse lifestyle changes based on informed narratives for quantifying long-term impacts. This research explores how comprehensive sustainable lifestyle scenarios, coined SLIM (Sustainable Living in Models) scenarios, could contribute to transport and residential emission reductions. By translating and quantifying lifestyle scenario narratives through engagements with advisors and policymakers, we modelled two distinct lifestyle scenarios which differ in their degree of access to structural support. In one scenario, governments, corporations and cities leverage existing values and market systems toshape citizen and consumer preferences and everyday practices. In the other scenario, people adopt ambitious sustainable lifestyle behaviours and practices through peer-to-peer interaction and digital technology. We quantified the scenarios based on motivations, contextual factors, extent, and speed of lifestyle adoptions with regional differentiation. Furthermore, we applied heterogenous adopter groups to determine the model inputs. We present the resulting pathways in per capita emissions and more detailed changes in total emissions via decomposition analyses. We conclude that regional differentiation of the scenario narratives and modelling of intra-regional differences allows accounting for equity in lifestyle changes to a certain extent. Furthermore, new technologies are more important for enabling lifestyle change in a scenario with than a scenario without strong structural support. With strong structural support, lifestyle changes reduce transport and residential emissions to a larger degree (about 39% for Global North and 27% for Global South overall in 2050 relative to a “Middle-of-the-Road” SSP2 reference scenario in 2050). Thus, lifestyle changes in larger systems change are essential for effective climate change mitigation.

Social pediatrics is an approach to child and youth health in the context of their family and the society in which they grow and develop. Social pediatrics takes action on social determinants such as income, housing, education, and social environment, as mediators of child and youth health. Youth in poverty and at risk for homelessness have disproportionate exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and intergenerational trauma. Families of some ethnic minority youth are disproportionately impacted by poverty. LGBT youth are disproportionately represented among homeless youth. Youth with developmental, cognitive, and learning disabilities are at disproportionate risk for homelessness. Social pediatric models, including the Circle of the Child (and Youth) with a Medical-Legal Community Partnership, are effective and innovative practices to maintain engagement of youth with their families and community, prevent homelessness, and continue engagement when youth leave home prematurely. Social pediatrics promotes structural factors that foster positive youth development, resiliency and social engagement, continued participation in school, and preparation for employment and constructively addresses interpersonal conflicts.