We’re proud of the work we do in the community. From washroom facilities to extra assistance at the recreation centre, our Peer Navigators open connections and go the extra mile to make our community a safer, healthier place.
Current Projects
Parkinson Rec Centre & PEOPLE Peer Navigators
PEOPLE’s peers at Parkinson Rec Centre: Our Peer Navigator creates a bridge to open connections between the vulnerable community and the staff and community users of the recreational facility. Our peer employee assists the staff at Parkinson’s Rec Centre by identifying members of the community who have life challenges that may need additional guidance and resources from the community. Our trained peer navigator sees people at our desk in the pool viewing area as well as outside in the fields and along the creek.
They help share knowledge, lived experience, support and resources. The people they serve in this community can need help in many areas including: cultural support, indigenous resources, emergency basic needs, clothing, food, hygiene, sheltering, housing, mental health support, substance use, harm reduction, employment, financial help, legal help, ID, program application forms, program referrals, technology help, medical referral help.
Okanagan Regional Library & PEOPLE Peer Navigators
We are proud of the work our peer navigators have built at the Okanagan Regional Libraries. We have peers regularly on location at both the Downtown branch and at the Rutland Branch. This important project provides community members with a safe place to come in off the streets to meet with a trained, experienced peer, with lived experience with knowledge and training especially related to helping with housing applications and Social Development Applications. We have one peer navigator who recently received certification as a VAT assessor (Vulnerable Assessment Tool) for BC Housing, Social Development Applications. This means that we are able to help people directly with those applications at this readily accessible public location rather than send them to another resource.
Our peers meet with people, sometimes over several meetings, to help them. They work through complex applications, connect them to resources in the community for supports for Mental Health & Substance Use, Legal Assistance, food, shelter, clothing, harm reduction, detox, treatment and peer support. Our peers do this in a non-judgmental way and do this in a place where people can feel comfortable and safe to meet them.
KIOSK/Queensway Washrooms Program & PEOPLE Peer Navigators
PEOPLE provides a critical, basic human service to our unsheltered community in downtown Kelowna by partnering with the City of Kelowna; we clean, supervise and monitor the washrooms daily, beside the Queensway bus stop. This provides people with the basic human dignity of a washroom to be able to relieve themselves, where they don’t have to ask, and possibly be turned away, where they don’t have to resort to a back alley, where they don’t have to feel ashamed over a basic bodily function. This is a job that is not often talked about and that can be awkward or uncomfortable to talk about for many.
There is a cry in the community for everyone to “do something” to make a difference. There is outrage when we hear that people have not used a proper facility. We have all seen the signs in businesses that washrooms are “for paying customers only.” Many public places are closed on weekends. Having these downtown washrooms is a connection to humanity. In extreme weather, we also provide other services such as in extreme heat, we have misting stations and water bottles available.
Xast WilxʷTn/A Place To Get Better & PEOPLE Peer Navigators
In partnership with Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society, Xast WilxʷTn (hast wheel tin): A Place to Get Better is a short-term housing space for indigenous community members to live and thrive during transition that require abstinence. This may be for those who are between detox and treatment, or it may be for situations when someone is released from incarceration.
Participants in this residential program are supported by our trained peer navigator staff with intensive case management, cultural supports, and group sessions. Each participant has their own private room. PEOPLE’s peer navigators are paired with participants and support and supervise them throughout this process. Participant stays at this housing range from one month to six months with eligibility reviewed monthly. Participants provide their own meals and pets are not allowed. There is a program contribution fee to stay in this program.
City of Kelowna Parks & Recreation Clean Up
Parks clean up service works collaboratively in support with efforts by the City of Kelowna to maintain the cleanliness of the downtown waterfront and parks areas during the busy summer months while employing PWLLE. The clean up crew improves the beautifications of the community both as pride for local citizens and experiences to remember for guests to Kelowna.
Community Peer Navigator Program
This program works in partnership with many social service agencies to build the capacity of social serving organizations to meaningfully incorporate people with lived or living experience (PWLLE) into support navigation for the people they serve. This program trains PWLLE to build skills and confidence to safely and effectively take on roles related to peer navigation. *This program was explicitly identified by people with lived experience as an element missing in supports provided to individuals with current and past experience of substance use. The peer navigation program works to develop the competencies and capacity of Indigenous PWLLE to support access to cultural teachings.
Commercial Maintenance Contracts
Our organization contracts with local commercial businesses to maintain the cleanliness and upkeep of their parking lots and related grounds. This provides supported employment for peer navigators, PWLLE, and improves and maintains the beautification of the commercial areas of the community. Our peer navigators help keep these areas clean and safe for the community, and inviting for tourists to Kelowna.
In addition to the physical maintenance work, the presence of our peer navigators provides a human contact for vulnerable people who may be present at those locations. This provides a benefit to our commercial partners and their patrons, as well as to the vulnerable citizens in our community. Our peers regularly are their first trusted point of contact to other services. We help to destigmatize, reduce conflicts, increase safety, and connect people with needed resources in the community.
Past Projects
Indigenous Harm Reduction Team (IHRT) knknxtewixt – Syilx We Walk Hand in Hand
The Indigenous Harm Reduction Team (IHRT) is a collaboration between the Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society and community partners to support the development of an innovative response that meets the needs of our Indigenous community members and their families with a culturally safe, trauma informed approach to harm reduction services.
IHRT works to decrease the harms related to substance use, sex work, homelessness, and intergenerational trauma by deconstructing colonialism and rebuilding a holistic and non-judgemental system. We work to support the Indigenous community by decreasing stigmatization, providing education and providing a safe space where they can access quality health care and /or other services.
