Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario: Development and initial implementation of integrated youth services in Ontario, Canada.

Aim: The need for youth-friendly early intervention services to meet the mental health, substance use, primary care, and other social needs of adolescents and young adults is well-documented. This article describes Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario, a province-wide initiative in Ontario, Canada to build and implement a one-stop-shop model of integrated youth services.

Methods: We describe the development of Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario, in the context of global youth mental health system transformation, as well as pan-Canadian youth mental health system change.

Design considerations for supervised consumption facilities (SCFs): preferences for facilities where people can inject and smoke drugs.

Background: Supervised consumption facilities (SCFs) aim to improve the health and well-being of people who use drugs by offering safer and more hygienic alternatives to the risk environments where people typically use drugs in the community. People who smoke crack cocaine may be willing to use supervised smoking facilities (SSFs), but their facility design preferences and the views of other stakeholders have not been previously investigated in detail.

Methods: We consulted with people who use drugs and other stakeholders including police, fire and ambulance service personnel, other city employees and city officials, healthcare providers, residents, and business owners (N = 236) in two Canadian cities without SCFs and asked how facilities ought to be designed.

Police perceptions of supervised consumption sites (SCSs): a qualitative study.

Police are key stakeholders in cities considering supervised consumption site (SCS) implementation. We examine police perceptions of SCSs using data collected between 2008 and 2010. Data from interviews and focus groups conducted with police officers of varied ranks (n = 18) in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada, were analyzed using thematic analyses.

Giving away used injection equipment: missed prevention message?

Background: Our objective was to examine factors associated with distributive injection equipment sharing and how needle exchange programs (NEPs) can help reduce distributive sharing among injection drug users (IDUs).

Methods: 145 English speaking Canadian IDUs ages 16 years and over who had injected in the past 30 days were recruited for a cross-sectional survey. Participants were asked about their socio-demographic characteristics, HIV risk behaviours, social support, drug treatment readiness, program satisfaction, health and social service use and NEP drug use.