Six Nations in Ontario overhauling how it fights opioid crisis — and that includes changing policing

Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario is overhauling its response to the opioid crisis, and it includes plans for a new team pairing police with crisis workers.

Eve Kahama, Six Nations Health Services integrated drug strategy co-ordinator, said it took two years, but the team was established this summer, "hopefully to be fully operational by April 2022."

The Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team doesn't have boots on the ground yet, but is emerging as communities across Canada wrestle with opioid use while considering whether policing needs to be changed.

"A lot of people who are Black and Brown, we get treated really, really badly by police," said Kahama, who is Black.

The team will manage mental-health calls as well as other calls, including a house fire, domestic violence situation or drug overdose. 

"Instead of them dealing just with police who often are dealing with multiple things at the same time, these crisis response workers are working with the people who are in crisis and are able to deliver trauma-informed crisis response that is also culturally safe to our community members," Kahama said.

If two officers attend a call, they'll have one mobile crisis response worker with them. There are currently two crisis workers on staff, she said.

In the meantime, workers are doing training and sorting through logistics, which includes co-ordinating with local police, hospitals and community services.

Six Nations sees uptick in overdoses

The moves are just some of the ways Six Nations is trying to tackle opioid use and drug overdoses.

The community has seen 53 suspected overdoses in 2021, as well as three deaths and a "noticeable increase of fentanyl and methamphetamines."

It also saw an uptick in overdoses, issuing a health alert in late October after seeing three overdoses in a 48-hour period.

None of those were fatal, Kahama said, but remain cause for concern given there were more overdoses this year compared to 2020 and 2019 (Kahama wouldn't share data from past years without first consulting the community).

While opioids lead to most local overdoses, stimulants (crystal meth and cocaine) and alcohol do as well, Kahama said.

She said she's seen more cases where fentanyl is laced with another drug like cocaine or heroin.

Other factors she listed that have contributed to the rise in overdoses include:

• The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects, including higher rates of mental health issues.
• Systemic racism and marginalization of First Nations people in the hospital systems.
• The intergenerational trauma caused by colonialism and discoveries of unmarked graves at former residential school sites.

A pair of recent reports show opioid-related deaths among Ontario's First Nations people jumped 132 per cent during the pandemic.

"The findings in these reports reinforce what First Nations leadership, families and communities have been demanding for decades. More needs to be done and we must act now," Glen Hare, Ontario regional chief with the Chiefs of Ontario, previously told CBC News.

"We need partnerships to address the crisis in this province ... Let's move forward with the government. Let's focus on protecting our young ones."

It's not just an issue in Indigenous communities, though. Hamilton and Niagara are among areas seeing record-levels of opioid use in 2021.

Other ways Six Nations is fighting opioid crisis

Kahama said that before she started her role in March 2020, there was no community drug strategy. That eventually started in September 2020 and would have been in place sooner had it not been for the pandemic.

Kahama said the drug strategy focuses on enhancing harm reduction and outreach, education and enhancing wraparound support.

"Throughout the pandemic, our mental health and addictions team has been supporting over 400 clients and have been working extremely hard to support our community members," she said.

"The increased mental health issues that have happened as a result of the pandemic made us realize that we needed to increase the hours and create additional roles for mental health workers in our community."

She also said Six Nations has changed how it tracks opioids. Before, emergency services like police and paramedics would collect data in their own silos, according to Kahama. That meant they weren't sharing data and were collecting it differently.

Now it all gets reported to Kahama and an epidemiologist.

Those efforts are in addition to the land-based healing centre, a mobile bus that does pop-ups for the opioid rescue drug naxolone, the AIDS Network Outreach van and a program that teaches people what to do when someone is overdosing (and soon, it'll also include stimulant and alcohol overdoses).

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.