The Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force’s Community Voices’ work is grounded in a simple principle: people with lived and living experience need meaningful opportunities to contribute to the programs, services and community responses that affect their lives.
That principle is reflected in the new Grey Bruce and Saugeen Ojibway Nation edition of Parents Like Us: The Unofficial Survival Guide to Caring for a Loved One Who Uses Substances.
The involvement of Community Voices members in Parents Like Us demonstrates what meaningful participation can look like: not simply being consulted about a finished product but contributing experiences and knowledge that help make a resource more relevant to the people who will use it.
The result is a handbook that speaks not only about caregivers and people who use substances, but with and from their experiences.
And perhaps the most important message carried through its 100-plus pages is also one of the simplest: You do not have to navigate this alone.
Thanks to the leadership of the Community Drug and Alcohol Strategy reducing harm in Grey Bruce, the originally developed in British Columbia, Parents Like Us was successfully adapted for Grey, Bruce, and Saugeen Ojibway Nation communities.
Thanks to funding from the Community Foundation Grey Bruce, the Parents Like Us Grey Bruce booklet is now available as a free digital download for caregivers, families, service providers, and community members across Grey, Bruce, and the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) territory from