CCAPO: Street Degree
The Vancouver Community Coalition Against Prohibition and Overdose (VAN CCAPO) Street Degree began as a peer informed and peer driven education collaboration between Vancouver Coastal Health, the Portland Hotel Society, the SRO Collaborative’s Tenant Overdose Response Organizer Project, the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society, DUDES Club, and the Coalition of Peers Dismantling the Drug War, with the goal of furthering the work being done by peers in the domains of overdose prevention, safe supply, housing, food security, and outreach. The VAN CCAPO Street Degree has peers engage and take leadership in content development and thereby addresses inequality and recreates the hierarchy of expertise while incorporating the wealth of knowledge found in lived experience. This helps break down barriers, decrease discrimination, and empowers peers as pivotal members of our community. Peers have stepped up in both the design and ongoing feedback of this education process as well as in the facilitation of courses. This education series could not happen without the contribution of peers, their knowledge, and their skills.