Sheila Kathleen Jennings, Toronto, ON

@SheilaKJennings

Sheila joined MSTH in November 2017. She is the mother of three amazing young adults, one of whom is in recovery. Through the lessons learned from her personal experience and by sharing parts of her son’s experience that he consents to her sharing, Sheila has become an advocate for drug policy reform aimed at reducing the range of harms associated with substance use.

Examples of some of Sheila’s advocacy:

• In October 2022 Sheila, along with Leslie McBain met together with the academic Addictions leadership at Centre for Addiction and Mental Health along with the CAMH Addictions policy advisor. The aim was to address with CAMH any existing barriers to the needed offering of a Safe Supply Heroin Program through that teaching Hospital.

• Reviewed grant applications for government for funding of research projects on ways to improve the delivery of services and supports to people who use substances and those close to them (2022)

• Presented as the Keynote speaker at the Thunder Bay Regional Board of Health’s Harm Reduction Innovative Solutions Conference (2020)

• Presented workshop to Opioid Case Managers at their Ontario Roundtable and Day of Learning, hosted by the Thunder Bay Counselling Addiction and Mental Health (2021)

• Agreed to academic oriented speaking engagement invitations, including at the University of Toronto Law School, York University Graduate Faculty of Nursing, and in the Humber College Public Administration program. 

• Accepted a follow up invitation to speak at the University of Toronto again with former Federal Minister Jane Philpott and former legal counsel to government and now professor of law, Ben Perrin, in relation to the release of Ben Perrin’s book “Overdose” 2020 (Presentations cancelled due to the pandemic)

• Accepted invitations to speak with community health centres across the GTA (2019-2022).

• Taught a graduate level course on the Overdose Crisis at OCAD University in Toronto (2020)

• Sits on several advising committees related to research into substance use at The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) with her focus being on the toxic street drug file (overdose).

• Spoken at an Expert Symposium on ways to address the drug poisoning crisis in Durham Region organized by Ontario Tech University (2022)

• Participated in a recorded Panel Discussion entitled “The Opioid Crisis in Oshawa and Beyond” organized by Ontario Tech University (2022)

• Sheila is presenting her paper entitled Just Another Overdose with No Reasonable Prospect.at the Global Meeting of the Law and Society Association (July 2022). This paper provides a critical an analysis of the decision in a legal case brought by a mother in relation to her daughter’s death from drug related harms at a hospital in London, Ontario

• Communicates directly with a variety of professional bodies and professional organizations (2018-current)

• Given synchronous Recorded ‘Reflections’ on the drug poisoning crisis at two large inner-city churches in Toronto (2018 and 2021)

• Advocated at meeting with Bereaved Families of Ontario to expand supports to grieving family and friends of folks who have died in the drug poisoning crisis in Ontario (2019)

• Answered requests from journalists for information or comments about drug poisoning. (2018 to present)

• Responded to a call to the public from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario for feedback on a policy document called “Prescribing Drugs – Draft Policy”. (2018)

• Participated in Provincial and Federal government Public Health Initiatives School Matters
  Public Education Partnership Symposium on Substance Use Planning Team

• Participated in an Institute for Health Research Workshop in Toronto with Leslie McBain, run by Public Health Ontario (2018)

• Attended and participated in The City of Toronto Community Dialogue: A Public Health Approach to Drugs.

• Supported initiatives towards decriminalization and safe injection site retention in Ontario (2018 – current)

• Advocates for improved harm reduction provisioning (Naloxone, reliable dispensing of supplies)

• Provided a written deputation on behalf of MSTH in support of recommendations from the Medical Officer of Health that the Board of Health endorse the proposal of the Medical Officer of Health to call upon the Federal government to decriminalize the possession of drugs for personal use, implement a public health response to the overdose crisis and convene a Task Force consisting of PWUD and other experts to assist with a suitable response (2018)

• Authored a poem called “Think of Me” about drug poisoning that she has read aloud at several different kinds of events, including at International Overdose Awareness Day, 2019 and 2021 in Toronto and in Mississauga respectively

• Agreed to be interviewed by media and interviewed for the 2019 film “Flood: The Overdose Epidemic in Canada”

• Appeared in the 2018 Mother’s Day Video Campaign Listen To Mom co-presented with Mexico’s Red de Enlaces Nacionales and USA’s Moms United To End The War On Drugs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8cNNLaHp2s&t=4s