Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Time: 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
 

Urban Agriculture Tour

1) "Growing Food in the Inner City" - focusing on land use, tenure, and other issues related to gardening in the urban core. This tour will look at different forms gardens in urban settings can take and examine the role the City, private developers, and NGO's play in creating them.

2) "Urbanization and Food Security" - looking at the bigger picture in terms of the pressures and opportunities urbanization creates for food production, food security and health. Visits include the Center for Sustainable Food Systems at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Farm and City Farmer's demonstration gardens and compositing facilities.

Cost: $40.00 CDN + 5% GST per person
 

Health Service Delivery Models to Complex Patients Tour

Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Time: 8:00 AM – 11:00 AM  

This tour is an opportunity to view innovative programs developed to address the health care needs of people living in Vancouver with complex health problems. The tour will begin with The Dr. Peter Centre, which has gained an international reputation for its innovative model of care. The Centre is unique in Canada and provides leading-edge care and support to improve the overall health of people most in need, particularly individuals with added issues of addiction, mental illness, homelessness and other life disadvantages.

The Day Health Program provides access to health care and treatment support, nutritious meals, counselling services, art and music therapy, and recreational and complementary therapies. The Residence offers short-term stabilization, longer-term medically complex care and palliative care. Interprofessional practice is within a broad harm reduction context. Nursing practice includes supervision of clients injecting drugs in order to teach safer injection techniques. The goal is to prevent illness, disease transmission, and death.

By sharing its model of care with other health care providers at the local, national and international level, the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, operators of the Dr. Peter Centre, strives to facilitate larger change in HIV/AIDS care in communities throughout Canada and around the world.

The second part of the tour provides an opportunity to see InSite, North America's first and only legally-sanctioned supervised injection facility. InSite has been open since 2003 and is co-managed by the PHS Community Services Society and Vancouver Coastal Health. With over 700 (sometimes over 1,000) visits per day, InSite is the busiest injection site in the world. Independent scientific research has demonstrated the site's effectiveness in reaching a highly marginalized, at-risk population, reducing overdose deaths, curtailing the spread of HIV and Hep C, and increasing uptake into other health services, including detoxification services.

The OnSite program, located above InSite, is an innovative community-based withdrawal management program with 12 beds of medically-monitored detox and 18 beds of transitional recovery.

This tour will also include a brief walk-about to the following, related projects: Washington Peer-to-Peer Needle Exchange, Washington Hotel, Roosevelt Hotel, Sunrise Hotel, Radio Station Café, Portland Dental Clinic, Pigeon Park Savings, Pennsylvania Hotel, InterUrban Art Gallery, the New Portland Hotel, the Portland Community Clinic, the Stanley/New Fountain Hotel, and the Community Transitional Care Team.

Cost: $40.00 CDN + 5% GST per person

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