Collaboration key to new Sarnia-Lambton drug and alcohol strategy

Giovanni Sottosanti has been helping map homeless encampments around Sarnia, connecting with people there and pointing them to resources that might help.

That could include withdrawal management, emergency shelters or food banks, said the constable with Sarnia’s four-officer Integrated Mobile Police and Community Team (IMPACT) launched in January.

Their work includes looking into the root causes of why someone may be in repeated trouble with police, he said, like being involved in dozens of shoplifting calls over two months.

“What can we do to redirect that person to other resources?” he said.

It’s also about building relationships with those resources, such as shelters and health-care providers, so when problems arise, they can contact IMPACT officers directly instead of calling 911 and tying up officers responding to other crimes, he said.

The team is a group of 20-plus organizations working to get at the root of substance use in Sarnia-Lambton.

Sottosanti and a panel met the media April 12 to discuss the new 10-year Lambton Drug and Alcohol Strategy, recently completed after six years of work — amid disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic — and endorsed by Lambton County Council this month.

Police are “kind of at the very base of it,” Sottosanti said, “trying to stream, direct people in the proper direction, rather than simply arresting people and charging people because . . . it’s not always working.”

Three pillars — harm, supply and demand reduction for drugs and alcohol — underpin the strategy aimed at getting a drug and alcohol problem, which has led to serious harm in the community, under control.

There were a record 43 opioid overdose-related deaths in 2020, for instance, 38 more in 2021, based on preliminary data, and 21 between January and October last year, said Lambton medical officer of health Karalyn Dueck.

“It’s tragic,” she said. “It’s people’s lives, and people’s loved ones who are grieving those lives.”

Collaboration between various agencies is at the heart of the vast strategy, she said.

“We’ve been doing this work in the community for as long as our mandates existed in various ways. . .,” she said. “When we come together as a team, it helps to not only increase the impact of our efforts, but makes it less confusing for people in the community” to know where to get help.

All the pillars affect one another, she said.

Demand reduction isn’t just about reducing illicit drug supply through policing and addressing underlying trauma from things like racism and violence, said Michelle Holbrook with Sarnia-Lambton Rebound, one of the agencies involved. It’s also about equipping youth with the social and problem-solving skills to hopefully avoid addiction in the first place.

Rebound has been pursuing its prevention and early intervention mission for decades, she said.

“We’ve been one piece of the puzzle in our community for sure, but we need to expand and figure out what everyone else is doing,” she said.

That means figuring out what different agencies are already doing to promote social connection and provide early education, then working together to fill any gaps, she said.

It’s much the same for harm reduction, said Kathy Bresett of the North Lambton Community Health Centre, which has had a harm-reduction team for years.

First, they’ll meet with other agencies to find out who’s doing similar work, she said. “Then we’ll be divvying up the work to be delivering safe supplies, linking people into primary care, getting people hot meals,” and addressing any issues with housing or navigating the system, she said.

Reducing supply means traditional police work — finding and arresting drug dealers — but also getting at the social determinants of health via IMPACT, said Sottosanti.

“The criminal portion is the supply, people bringing in the drugs,” he said, adding being part of IMPACT has been revealing how trauma drives people to addiction.

“There’s a whole bunch of things that have to be brought together, and that’s why this team approach” is needed, he said.

The plan, informed by consulting people with lived experience of substance use, is designed to be comprehensive, incorporating individual, community-level and policy-informed actions, said Dueck. “When those come together and the community comes together, that’s when you have the biggest impact.”

Along with committees helping implement the plan, advisory panels will ensure people with lived experience continue to be heard and evaluate progress, Dueck said.

“As a family physician, a public health physician, I have first-hand seen the devastation that (drug and alcohol addiction) causes for people: illness, injury, death . . . ,” she said. “Seeing those trends go down would be the goal for sure.”

The plan includes support for rural communities in Lambton County and First Nations, said Bresett.

“I think the two key principles of all of this are kindness and caring for the clients, and building that trust to lessen the stigma,” she said.

And while participating agencies are doing all this collaborative work in-kind, more money is needed for front-line services, Bresett said.

“We would like to see more spending directed to community health and shifted from other places, so that will build that healthier community,” she said.

Sottosanti shared the story of a drug user who recently tried to get help from hospital withdrawal management. “Unfortunately their resources are tapped and they don’t have the room. . . , so now this guy is left in limbo,” he said.

Those systemic limitations are becoming more apparent as the work unfolds, he said.

“They’re doing an awesome job,” he said of withdrawal management. “It’s just there not enough of it. We need more.”

Plan details are at lambtondas.ca.