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Canada’s Prison Needle Exchange Program (PNEP): Lessons Learned and Accessibility Barriers

Introduction

This webinar will explore key barriers and recommendations to Prison Needle Exchange Program (PNEP) access and enrollment. PNEP was implemented in 2018 by the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) to provide people in prisons with access to sterile injection equipment.

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Time & Date

December 6th, 2023

11:00 – 12:00 p.m. CT

Synopsis

This webinar is the sixth in the NCCID series, Corrections as Public Health Settings for STBBI Testing and Care, which began in 2022. The series aims to support public health and correctional health departments across Canada in sharing knowledge to improve practices for the prevention, testing, treatment, and care of sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI), including hepatitis C and HIV, in correctional settings.

This webinar will explore key barriers and recommendations to Prison Needle Exchange Program (PNEP) access and enrollment. PNEP was implemented in 2018 by the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) to provide people in prisons with access to sterile injection equipment.

The webinar will feature presentations by:

  1. Sandra Ka Hon Chu, first author of Points of Perspective: Research Report on the Federal Prison Needle Exchange Program in Canada
  2. Rhiannon Thomas, Research Coordinator of Points of Perspective: Research Report on the Federal Prison Needle Exchange Program in Canada
    The presentations will be followed by an interactive Q&A session.

Learning Objectives:

The webinar will support the audience to:

  1. Understand the rationale for prison needle and syringe programs in Canada, 
  2. Understand the approach to the Prison Needle Exchange Program (PNEP) adopted by Correctional Service Canada, 
  3. Understand the barriers this approach poses to participation; and 
  4. Learn about the recommendations that the research team prposes in response to these barriers.

Moderator: Signy Baragar, Project Manager, NCCID

Speakers

Sandra Ka Hon Chu is a lawyer and Co-Executive Director of the HIV Legal Network, a human rights organization that works to uphold the rights of people living with and affected by HIV. She works on HIVrelated human rights issues concerning prisons, drug policy and harm reduction, sex work, women, andimmigration, and has helped guide the Legal Network’s litigation in key court cases in Canada and internationally, including lawsuits challenging the Canadian government’s failure to adopt prison-based needle and syringe programs and criminal laws governing sex work. Sandra was called to the bar of British Columbia in 2003.

Rhiannon Thomas has been working in harm reduction in Toronto for almost 20 years in drop-ins, shelters and community health centers, doing case management, trustee support, needle exchange, outreach and research. She is a founding member of the Toronto Harm Reduction Alliance, and a Board Advisor with the Women’s Harm Reduction International Network. She is currently the strategic lead for the COUNTERfit Harm Reduction Program at South Riverdale Community Health Centre, and a researcher with University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada.