Introduction
Much is changing in the substance use and child welfare fields to bring forth approaches
that are culturally safe, trauma informed, harm reduction-oriented and participant-driven.
This toolkit highlights these advances and invites people working in both systems to think
about how we can continue to improve our work, in partnership with the women who use
these services.
How to use this toolkit
This toolkit is designed primarily for substance use and child welfare practitioners, as well as other service
providers and health system planners who offer services to, or design services with, pregnant women and new mothers who use substances.
• The first section examines how women who use opioids experience stigma and includes tools for assessing potentially stigmatizing practices. This section also includes a script for responding constructively to coworkers’ stigmatizing behaviour, as well as a factsheet developed for practitioners by women with lived experience.
• The second section describes how stigma relates to the barriers that women face. It identifies promising practice and policy responses that address stigma and health, substance use, and child protection concerns. Tools are provided to facilitate integrating promising approaches into our responses, and to identify ways in which barriers can be overcome.
• The third section includes information and tools to facilitate cross-system collaboration. Featured in this section are tools that help identify how the substance use and child welfare fields can effectively collaborate, while responding to their respective mandates and roles in supporting women and children. In this way, care is wrapped around families.
• The final section discusses policy matters, and how defining and affirming policy values can clarify our work in both systems of care. This section emphasizes viewing mothers and children as a unit when developing policy and programming to facilitate the goal of keeping mothers and children together.
