PART TWO: RESEARCH ON HARM REDUCTION AND LEARNING IN VANCOUVER’S DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE

Some of us have just hit hard times and are doing the best we can, without going out and bothering other people. So, until you’ve met us, please don’t think that we are all bad. A lot of us have a lot of good in us. If you treat us with respect, you’ll be treated with respect in turn. (from “Look before you leap to conclusions (Andy in UpWords 2(2), July 2006)

From our review of academic and practitioner-based literature as well as of the writing by program participants like Andy, we can see that respect, and looking for the good in people, are indeed cornerstones of Harm Reduction. In our research we went on to look more closely at the links between Harm Reduction and learning — specifically literacy and Adult Basic Education learning.

In this second part of the report, we describe this research. First we describe the methods we used, and then our findings. The findings are organized to answer our three research questions:

1. What is Harm Reduction and how does it affect Downtown Eastside residents who engage in high-risk behaviours?
2. How does Harm Reduction link to learning?
3. How can Capilano College and our partner learning centres support harm reduction in our learning activities?

Research Methods

Data Collection

To conduct this research, we gathered data through focus groups, practitioner reflection and document reviews. These are explained in more detail below.