Building an Evidence Base for an Innovative Harm Reduction Program

Grenfell Ministries is a peer-led, Unitarian Universalist faith-based non-for-profit that addresses the needs of people pushed to the margins of our society. A pioneering harm-reduction organization based in Hamilton, Ontario, Grenfell is built and led entirely by people who have experienced substance use disorder and associated struggles with poverty, homelessness, incarceration, and mental health challenges. Having engaged with punitive, infantilizing and barrier-ridden abstinence-based policies and programs, Grenfell’s team built their model with choice, empowerment, and non-judgment at its heart. Their programs empower participants to choose their own path in addressing the challenges in their lives.

Grenfell Ministries partnered with Spark: a centre for social research innovation at McMaster University to rigorously evaluate the impacts on participants lives, and the broader social benefits of helping the socially marginalized improve their lives. Early evidence suggests their work is highly effective and may be appropriate to replicate broadly across locations. The process of building an evidence base that would support replication is long and difficult. This project will help the partners make critical steps to transition from a strong foundational base of evidence to a full randomized-controlled trial (considered a gold standard of evidence for a policy or program) that would allow Grenfell’s model – if proven to be as highly effective as early evidence suggests – to fundamentally alter social services provision for the most socially marginalized across Canada.

Faculty Supervisor:

Michelle Dion;Allison Van

Student:

Partner:

Grenfell Ministries

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Health and Related Sciences & Technology

University:

McMaster University

Program: