WHY SCS is a website designed to help communicate the science behind supervised consumption sites.
As a result of the national overdose emergency, Canada has seen rapid scale-up of supervised consumption services (SCS) in the past four years, and the country is now home to 36 federally sanctioned services, with additional sites pending approval. Little research has examined the features or context of emerging SCS models. Additionally, despite concerns about overdose and other drug-related harm across Canada, implementation of SCS to date has been limited to just 5/13 provincial/territorial jurisdictions. The present implementation science project was designed to support further implementation and evaluation of SCS in Canada. Outputs of these initiatives will provide prospective SCS operators with access to both technical guidance and knowledge translation products designed to enhance public and policymaker understanding of these services. In addition, this project will produce new knowledge on the state of SCS in Canada.
WHY SCS is a project of the Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse (CRISM). The WHY SCS team works with substance use researchers, people with lived and/or living experience of substance use, and healthcare providers to provide accurate information about supervised consumption services in Canada.