New Resources at MAX

August 24, 2024

MAX Ottawa is introducing five new resources that were created to support our community’s health and wellbeing. From safer snorting spoons to prevent pathogen transmission and overdoses to informative care cards that facilitate smoother healthcare visits, these resources are designed to empower our community to take control of their health.

The new resources include:

  • Trans health care cards
  • Sexual health care cards
  • Substance user care cards
  • Drug information cards
  • Safer snorting spoons

Care Card Series

We often hear from community members that they have difficulty articulating their needs to healthcare and other service providers, especially in a professional setting. Feeling intimidated or insecure can lead to a lack of disclosure of important information, leading to the possibility of inadequate care. At the same time, we hear from healthcare providers that they sometimes struggle to know which questions to ask or how to ask them in a sensitive way, especially as the terminology around gender, sex, sexuality, and substance use evolves. These care cards were designed to take out some of the guesswork for both community members and service providers, leading to a better experience and better care.

Prototypes of these cards were produced in March 2024 and shared with service providers, partner organizations, and community members for feedback. Each card went through several iterations based on this feedback in the subsequent months and still has a link to a feedback form to ensure ongoing input.

Trans & Gender Diverse Care Card

Designed to help trans and gender-diverse individuals navigate the healthcare system with confidence and self-advocacy, this tool was inspired by the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) and developed with the input from the Trans Health Clinic at Centretown Community Health Centre (CCHC). This card aims to ensure that a patient or client’s name, pronouns, and unique healthcare needs are communicated to a service provider.

What’s On It:

  • Name and Pronouns: An area to clearly state your identity.
  • Self-Disclosure Area: Share how you’re feeling about your health and the care you need.
  • Pre-existing conditions: Let your provider know about any relevant factors in your healthcare. 
  • What type of care is needed: A space suggested language to let your healthcare provider know what type of trans-specific care you’re looking for.
  • Resources: For healthcare professionals who may need accurate information on trans health care, and for trans folks who need additional support.

Throughout its development, we’ve focused on providing space for different types of transitions—recognizing the validity of both medical and non-medical transitions, as well as various combinations of care.

Sexual health care card 

This card was created to help individuals navigate sexual health conversations with healthcare providers who may lack knowledge about queer sex and safer sex practices. In recognizing the need to overcome implicit cis-heteronormative biases that often make it challenging to discuss queer sexuality, we designed this card to support clients in communicating their sexual health needs clearly and effectively.

Developed with Expertise: This card was created with input from Dr. Patrick O’Byrne, professor of nursing at the University of Ottawa, and from Planned Parenthood Ottawa, ensuring it meets the specific needs of our community and incorporates best practices in sexual health care.

What’s On It:

  • Name and Pronouns: An area to clearly state your identity.
  • Sex Organs and Partners: Disclose the sex organs you have, the genders of your sexual partners, and the sex organs of those partners.
  • Medications & Protection: Record any medications you’re taking, such as hormones or birth control, what you use for protection, and when you were last tested for STBBIs.
  • Health and Care Needs: A section to share how you’re feeling about your health and why you’re seeking care.

The inclusion of a section for current medications and ensuring that sex organs are described in a non-gendered way are intended to help streamline conversations with healthcare providers as much as provide a template for how they can ask these questions of other clients or patients. 

People Who Use Substances Care Card

We’re proud to introduce the People Who Use Substances Care Card—a crucial tool designed to help individuals openly and accurately discuss their substance use with healthcare providers. Stigma often makes it difficult for people to speak openly about their substance use, but clear communication is essential for receiving the right care and support.

Substance use can have significant health impacts, and reaching out for help can be challenging. Additionally, substances can be used in various ways—whether it’s snorting, smoking, or other methods—and being able to talk about the specifics of your use with your healthcare provider is vital for getting accurate and effective care.

What’s On It:

  • Name and Pronouns: An area to clearly state your identity.
  • Health: Share how you’re feeling about your health 
  • Substance Use: Provide details on your substance use, including how, when, and how often you use.
  • Substance Details: Record what substances you use and how long you’ve been using them.

This card was reviewed by Dr. Patrick O’Byrne, professor of nursing at the University of Ottawa, to ensure it meets the needs of those who use substances.

We Need your Input

On the back of the care cards in our series, you’ll find a QR code for feedback. This resource is still in development, and we want to hear from you! Let us know if there’s something we should add or change to make this card even more effective in meeting your needs.

If you have any feedback, please let us know here:

Drug info cards

Our series of drug information cards draw on resources from the PartyAndPlay.info campaign by the Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance (GMSH), which was designed to make safer drug information more accessible to our community. These cards provide basic information about each substance and link to an online resources page with more robust information, links to external resources, and connections to treatment options. It was critical to ensure that the information provided is drug-specific, discreet, factually accurate, and non-stigmatizing in order to help community members understand substances from a reliable source that they trust rather than relying on information from friends, partners, or strangers in social settings.

By distributing these resources in areas where people gather to party, we make crucial information accessible when and where it’s needed most. While the starting point for these cards was the GMSH campaign, we also leveraged resources from the Government of Canada, as well as community interventions like DanceSafe and TripSit.

We focused on 10 substances that are most commonly used within our community:

  • Alcohol
  • Cannabis
  • Cocaine
  • Crystal Meth
  • Erectile Agents
  • G (including GHB, GBL, and BDO)
  • Ketamine
  • MDMA
  • Mushrooms
  • Poppers

We provide three versions of the “G” card in order to address the fact that the substance in use may not be GHB itself, but rather GBL or BDO—this distinction is important for shaping dosing and ensuring personal safety. Many community members have told us that they are unaware of the distinction between the three chemicals.

Safer snorting spoons 

MAX has been distributing safer snorting kits for several years and they are among our more popular harm reduction resources. Over the last year, we have received feedback from community members letting us know that the straws were helpful, but only if there was a clean surface on which to put their substances. If they were using somewhere like a club or a bar, they relied on items like keys or finger nails, which harbour bacteria and can transmit pathogens, or repurposed items with a scoop that were difficult to measure with and prone to delivering too high of a dose. 

The safer snorting spoons provide an alternative, safer option to these items with the aim of reducing the risk of pathogen transmission and overdosing. The device is designed to be for personal use—being small, lightweight, and freely distributed—to prevent the sharing of drug paraphernalia. 

By leaning into a less clinical design, the spoon is geared towards community members who are in Zone 1 “The Pleasure Zone” from the Party and Play Zones of Engagement (below) developed by the GMSH and Yasser Ismail. In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, reaching individuals in this Zone also lets them know that there is an agency in their city that offers supportive programs and services for substance users, should they ever need support or want to change or stop their use.

For more information about the Zones of Engagement and on the nuances of substance use among gay, bisexual, queer, and other men who have sex with men, see:

  • Ismail, Yasser, et al. “Empowering the Search for Pleasure, Health and Well‐Being Outside Heteronormative Definitions: The Role of Evaluation in Shaping Structurally Sensitive Programming for 2SGBTQ+ Men Who Party and Play in Ontario.” New Directions for Evaluation, vol. 2022, no. 175, 21 Oct. 2022, pp. 87–107, https://doi.org/10.1002/ev.20511.
  • Strong, Carol, et al. “HIV, Chemsex, and the Need for Harm-Reduction Interventions to Support Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men.” The Lancet HIV, vol. 9, no. 10, 1 Aug. 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/s2352-3018(22)00124-2.