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New role at Pathways to help navigate addictions recovery in Penticton

The part-time role received a year’s worth of funding from the Community Action Initiative

As the toll of B.C.’s overdose crisis continues, a Penticton non-profit is taking a new, more intensive and more involved approach to recovery.

A new program with the Pathways Addictions Resource Centre will see counsellor Mike Mai in a part-time role helping those in recovery to navigate some of their day-to-day matters. The program comes after Pathways successfully applied for a year’s worth of funding from Community Action Initiative to kick off its Intensive Co-ordinated Care Opioid Navigator (ICCON) program.

Mai’s new role will assist clients with maintaining housing in disputes with landlords, connecting clients with services, getting identification, getting legal aid, getting and sustaining employment and going to the doctor.

“So you can do text messaging and having that contact with someone to go ‘OK, I’m going to my doctors today. I’m having issues with my doctors; we’re kind of missing on our language here.’ So I would most like invite myself with the permission of the client and the doctor, and say ‘hey can I be the mediator in this?’ so we can translate what it is this person is asking versus what you need this person to do,” he said.

“Just regular everyday stuff is really hard. You only get 15 minutes with a doctor in some cases, right? That’s just one circumstance, and you have other service providers.”

The program is exclusive to those addicted to opioids, a family of substances that have been some of the most prevalent in in deadly overdoses in B.C. However, it isn’t entirely that simple — Mai noted that many drug users fall under the polysubstance dependance umbrella, with users often sustaining addictions not only to, for example, heroin, but also often to methamphetamine or cocaine.

“The process is grieving the relationship with substances. You’re changing that relationship, coming to that understanding of it and to get to a healthier platform,” Mai said.

The funding is fresh off the grant application, so Mai’s work has only just begun. Currently, he is working with service providers, doctors, the hospital, police and others to build up a base of about 21 clients for the service, which will largely be referral-based.

Even when a client is already connected with service providers, Mai said there is often work needed to maintain those connections. And beyond assisting the client directly, Mai said the program is intended to also assist clients indirectly by enhancing connections between agencies, with hopes of making service providers more effective.

Mai said in his initial client-building work he has heard a “sigh of relief” from some of the other service providers.

“Every single time you add something new — or even not to have to reinvent the wheel, right, you’re just kind of making it more efficient or however it looks — I think everyone gets happy with that,” he said.

“The advantage of this to me is because I get to be boots to the ground in many ways, because of the outreach capacity of it. Obviously there’s always going to be disadvantages, but that’s how you learn, and you learn in that continuum of communication around that.”

Those entering the program will have to be safely housed and on opioid agonist treatment program, either methadone or suboxone. That means most of Mai’s clients will be in some level of recovery, but the client load will vary from a few high-maintenance clients to a number of very low-maintenance individuals.

Relapse won’t be a deal breaker in the program either — Mai noted that even though one hopes to avoid a relapse, it is often considered part of the journey to recovery.

“You’re going to have some obstacles. You’re going to have some barriers that you discover; some of them might come as a surprise. … So relapse is going to be part of it to some degree,” he said.

“Organically, when you’re doing the work, that means you’re doing the work with people constantly involved in your life in supporting you and getting to a healthier version of you.”

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Dustin Godfrey | Reporter
@dustinrgodfrey
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