News

BCAPOP would like to share with all our members, partners and donors that our Heathy Care Pregnancy Program (HCPP) pilot project concluded as of March 31, 2025, after five insightful years.

HCPP was designed to improve outcomes for perinatal people who use or have used substances and their infants, who are not already connected to healthcare services. The pilot program was successful in demonstrating how the HCPP approach and inreach workers can be utilized in communities to support some of the most marginalized dyads to overcome barriers to health, wellness and togetherness. You can read our external evaluation that was done by the Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health here.

Since 2022, the funding for the pilot project decreased by 70% and BCAPOP could not sustain the program’s capacity, standards and values that allowed the inreach workers to make such a positive impact on the population they walked alongside and supported.

In 2025-26, BCAPOP will be dedicated to capturing and preserving the pilot project learnings and supporting the sites to sunset the program while transitioning participants to existing services and programs, where available.     

Conclusion Steps for 2025-26:

• All current host sites are welcome to continue their HCPP independently with alternate funding and/or integrate the program into their current programs and services. Each organization is empowered to create their own HCPP integration or sunset plan, which may include transitioning participants to other existing services and programs.  BCAPOP will no longer be providing direct operational support or oversight to the sites who choose to continue HCPP.
• The current host sites will be transitioned from accessing program resources from the online HCPP Portal to a digital HCPP Program Toolkit during the final year.  
• BCAPOP will create an online HCPP Training Program which will be available to pregnancy outreach programs, perinatal professionals and helping peers who wish to adapt and utilize the HCPP approaches in their services. This training will be offered free of charge for two years.
• BCAPOP will develop and disseminate a pilot project conclusion feedback tool collate the findings into a final report that will be shared with all sites, PHSA, partners and the public.

BCAPOP hosted an in-person conclusion meeting with the current HCPP sites in May 2025 to gather the sites’ learnings and to thank the host organizations for their work over the last five years.

BCAPOP would like to thank the Provincial Perinatal Substance Use Program, BC Women’s Mental Health and Substance Use Programs + Initiatives, our partners, regional health authorities, BCAPOP Members, donors, HCPP inreach workers and all the acute care sites and Program Members who made this pilot program so successful. This work would not have been possible without you.

Lastly, BCAPOP would like to formally thank and acknowledge the following HCPP host organizations and acute care sites for their participation in the pilot:

• Kamloops- The Tree/Royal Inland Hospital
• Powell River- Lift Community Services/Powell River General Hospital
• 100 Mile House/Williams Lake - Cariboo Family Enrichment Centre & Cariboo Friendship Society/ Cariboo Memorial Hospital
• Duncan – Hiiye'yu Lelum (House of Friendship) Society/Cowichan District Hospital
• Burnaby/New Westminster- Burnaby Family Life/Royal Columbian Hospital
• Smithers- Dze L K’ant Friendship Centre Society/Bulkley Valley District Hospital
• Port Alberni- Port Alberni Friendship Centre & Port Alberni Public Health Unit/West Coast General Hospital
• Terrace – Terrace Child Development Centre/Mills Memorial Hospital
• Prince George – PG & District Elizabeth Fry Society/University Hospital of Northern BC
• Richmond – Ellizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver & Atira Women's Resource Society/Richmond Hospital
• Surrey – Options Community Services/Surrey Memorial Hospital

To be notified when the HCPP online training is released, please ensure you sign up for our E-News Snapshot here.

BCAPOP gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Provincial Perinatal Substance Use Program, BC Women’s Mental Health and Substance Use Programs + Initiatives for this pilot project funding.

The BCAPOP Board of Directors (BOD) is seeking applications for new board directors including one who can fill the position of Treasurer and who is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA)and also looking for increased representation from people who self-identify as Indigenous.   

BCAPOP’s BOD is a volunteer board and as per Bylaw7.1 No director shall be remunerated for being or acting as a director or holding a Board position, but a director may be reimbursed for all expenses necessarily and reasonably incurred while engaged in the affairs of the society.   

Potential BCAPOP Board Directors are put forward by the BOD and elected by the Program Members during our Annual General Meeting (AGM)for three-year terms and as per Bylaw 4.2, have the option to run for re-election to serve up to three consecutive terms for a total of up to nine years. 

For more details see the posting here.

Posting closes June 30th, 2025. 

As part of BCAPOP's commitment to reconciliation, BCAPOP will be offering one table in our exhibitor hall to an Indigenous Artist to sell their creations, art of crafts.  We are asking that people who self-identify as Indigenous and who would like an opportunity to sell their art/creations/crafts at our 26th Annual Perinatal Conference to enter the random draw here: https://forms.office.com/r/snqzxLSq0z

Draw will take place on May 5th at 9:00amPT and all entries will be notified of the result.  The table will be available to the artist on May13th & 14th, 2025 to sell their goods to an audience of over 185 perinatal professionals from across BC.  There will be no other vendors at this conference, only non-profit exhibitors.  

Please join us in congratulating Andrea, Grady, BA, MSc. on her promotion to Director of Operations at BCAPOP. Andrea has been a valued team member of BCAPOP since January of 2021 and was originally hired as the Project Manager of the Healthy Care Pregnancy Program (HCPP) Pilot Project. As the HCPP pilot wraps up, we are honoured to welcome Andrea to this permanent position that works closely with our Executive Director overseeing the daily operations of BCAPOP.

Congrats Andrea!

We are pleased to re-open our application process for interested applicants to join our helping peer network advisory. 

This network’s purpose is to bring together helping peers with lived and/or living experience with perinatal substance use (PSU) from across BC to collaborate to improve the engagement experience of current and future helping peers. The network serves as a platform for BCAPOP to provide training and engage with helping peers in a meaningful, respectful and trauma-informed way to gain direct feedback on new tools, ideas, or programming from those who are volunteering and/or working in peer support roles.  

BCAPOP is looking for up to 5 new helping peers to join this network from April 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026.  Please review the Terms of Reference and if interested, submit your application by Monday, March 31, 2025 via the below. 

Application Link: Application of Interest: BCAPOP's Provincial Perinatal Substance Use Peer Support Network

We are equitably trying to recruit members that self-identify as Indigenous and/or reside in areas of the province that are not already represented on this network. Priority will be given to these applicants that meet the application criteria.

Please contact Andrea Grady, Project Manager (andrea@bcapop.ca) if you have any questions regarding this network or application.

Dear BCAPOP team, 

I wanted to share the resources that the Reproductive Infectious Diseases Team at UBC recently developed to promote knowledge of syphilis in pregnancy and the general importance of prenatal care. There is a public-facing resource, a Linktree to learn more about syphilis, and a short report for providers about the current situation in BC.

• Syphilis-Resource-Nov-2024.pdf

• Linktree - Syphilis Resource List

• Brief-Syphilis-Report-British-Columbia-Nov-2024.pdf

We would like to acknowledge the incredible contributions of our collaborators from the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, and, our artist, Lise Gillies. 

We would love it if these could be shared through your networks or on any of your platforms. We are also happy to print and ship these to any folks who express interest.

Please let me know if there is anything else you need from us to make this happen!

Thank you so much.

Warmly,

Roisin Delaney

Knowledge Mobilization Coordinator

Reproductive Infectious Diseases

BC Women's Hospital + Health Centre

E: roisin.delaney@cw.bc.ca / www.whri.org

BCAPOP was awarded $100,000 from the Community Prosperity Fund to increase its capacity between September 2024 and August 2026 in preparation to operate a bed-based program in Kamloops for perinatal people who have used substances and their infants. This bed-based program will ensure Kamloops participants remain in the community, strengthen the parent-baby attachment, and stabilize the dyad with proven evidence-based, best practice approaches. The outcomes will be reduced child removals that result from a lack of access to a safe and supervised bed-based program, increased capacity of parents to safely care for their children while simultaneously addressing their substance use.

If you are a local professional, helping peer, community member or person with lived/living experience with perinatal substance use and you are interested in finding out more about the Next Steps Project, then please complete this expression of interest to attend one of our community consultations in the spring of 2025.  Once the event details are solidified, you will receive an invite to register.  This expression of interest does not signify a commitment to engage or attend this event.    

Our Board of Directors and team could not be more grateful to the Community Prosperity Fund, BC Interior Community Foundation and the Province of British Columbia for investing in our organization, our community and most importantly, their investment in improving the outcomes for perinatal people and their infants.

Expression of Interest: EXPRESSION OF INTEREST: Next Steps Project Community Consultation (Live/In-Person/Kamloops/Spring 2025)

This knowledge exchange’s purpose is to bring leadership together from bed-based programs from across BC to share the knowledge and wisdom that can improve the experience of current and future participants who access existing and new bed-based programs. The knowledge exchange will serve as a platform for bed-based programs in BC to share knowledge and get feedback on new ideas in hopes of making the work more efficient, avoid reinventing the wheel and creating a support system for leadership that otherwise tends to work in isolation.

BCAPOP is looking for 5-10 representatives (one/program) from BC community, bed-based programs that serve pregnant, postpartum and/or newly parenting people who have used substances and their infants to join this Knowledge Exchange from October 2024-August 2026.  Meetings will take place quarterly.  Please review the Terms of Reference and if interested, submit your application by Tuesday, October 1, 2024.  

Please contact Heather Cameron, Executive Director (heather@bcapop.ca) if you have any questions regarding this network or application. 

Application Link:  https://forms.office.com/r/cByWW2PtK1

BCAPOP and the Next Steps Project gratefully acknowledge the support of the Province of British Columbia.

BCAPOP is grateful to have been selected as a recipient of the Community Prosperity Fund in August of 2024 and for the financial support of the Province of British Columbia to move forward on our “Next Steps Project”.   

BCAPOP was awarded $100,000 and the funding will increase the capacity of BCAPOP over the next two years to operate a bed-based program in Kamloops for perinatal people who use/have used substances and their infants. Currently, no comparable program in Kamloops/surrounding areas exist; the closest program is in Kelowna. This program will ensure Kamloops participants remain in the community, strengthen the parent-baby attachment, and stabilize the dyad with proven evidence-based, best practice approaches. The outcomes will be reduced child removals that result from a lack of access to a safe and supervised bed-based programming, increased capacity of parents to safely care for their children while simultaneously addressing their substance use.

If you are interested in keeping up with the developments of the Next Steps Project, including updates, call for committee members, partners & volunteers, please be sure to subscribe to our Snapshot E-News: BCAPOP - Mailing List . 

Our Board of Directors and team could not be more grateful to the Community Prosperity Fund, BC Interior Community Foundation and the Province of British Columbia for investing in our organization, our community and most importantly, their investment in improving the outcomes for perinatal people and their infants.

We are pleased to announce a new time limited project, which includes establishing BCAPOP's Provincial Perinatal Substance Use Peer Network.

This network’s purpose is to bring together helping peers with lived and/or living experience with perinatal substance use (PSU) from across BC to collaborate to improve the engagement experience of current and future helping peers. 

BCAPOP is seeking 5-10 helping peers with living/lived experience to join this network from October 2024- March 31, 2025.  Please review the Terms of Reference and if interested, submit your application by Friday, October 4th, 2024. 

Application Link: Application of interest: BCAPOP's Provincial Perinatal Substance Use Peer Support Network

If you have any questions regarding the application or BCAPOP's Provincial PSU Peer Network, please reach out to Andrea Grady, Project Manager at andrea@bcapop.ca. Thank you for your interest in this worthwhile project!