Heather’s journey has been one filled with a lifetime of challenges, intergenerational trauma, social exclusion, self harm and significant adversity. This created a strong sense of uncertainty of where she belongs in the world as a neurodivergent person undiagnosed until her thirties, she often carried a belief that she was a defective, broken human which mostly presented in the context of her substance use, homelessness, criminalization and state neglect, which began in 2004 at twelve years old and later led her to street entrenchment in Vancouver’s downtown east side in 2007 until 2013 when she gave birth to her first child.

She began working in Harm Reduction in early 2014, and has worked in a variety of settings including community primary care, supportive housing, overdose prevention, clinical outreach, shelter support, and drug user liberation organizing rooted in dismantling whiteness, capitalism, and the war on drugs. Heather’s first public speaking gig took place in 2016 for an anti-stigma campaign and since has attended dozens of international conferences, helped lead groundbreaking initiatives in opioid agonist therapy for clients in a low barrier capacity, education projects, and in 2023, she began working in systems level leadership for harm reduction. She began her journey as an educator in 2022, focusing on resisting carceral logic, revolutionary harm reduction, trauma informed practice and conflict resolution, and since then Heather has evolved from deep sense of unworthiness, to embracing the messy.

She challenges various social expectations that demand a performance when moving through the world, and with deep commitment to collective care, she aims to encourage others to reframe their own discomfort with societal expectations as aspects of themselves that are deeply human. She rejects the typical practice of moral & optic purity and demonstrates that it’s okay to exist outside of socially acceptable parameters whether we are people who use drugs, clinicians, educators, leaders or simply exist without labels. She brings this lens into spaces that otherwise uphold performance over authenticity.

Within the systems we work in, there are often unspoken dynamics shaping outcomes, an elephant in the room we’re discouraged from naming.

Heather’s approach creates space for your humanity and for you to show up as your most authentic self. She deeply approaches relational rapport in a way that feels safe for you to be messy and imperfect, without expectation for you to perform. She encourages room for what’s been avoided, opening the door to more honest practice, deeper care, and outcomes that are not possible within silence.

By inviting fresh and critical perspectives, this work shifts mindsets from charity and compassion toward dignity, solidarity and liberation. It brings hidden truths to the surface and asks where certain acceptable norms come from, so better outcomes become possible. Heather ensures you leave her spaces with a way of working you can stand behind, grounded in clarity, integrity, and renewed purpose.

Services

• Policy & Systems Consulting: Review, develop, or help rewrite policies through an equitable lens.

• Facilitation & Training: Workshops and learning sessions on trauma-informed practice, transformative justice, ethical peer inclusion, conflict resolution, harm reduction best practices and more.

• Strategic Advising: Support for leadership teams navigating low barrier, harm reduction centred, equity, and inclusion goals.

• Community Engagement: Building collaborative, trust-based relationships between institutions and impacted communities.

Approach

• anti-carceral.

• Centering the expertise of people most impacted.

• Solidarity, Dignity & Liberation

• Dignified space for humanity, vulnerability and openness.

• Rooted in relational, transformative justice and collective care.

• Grounded in harm reduction and trauma-informed principles.

Who this is for

• Health authorities/clinical teams

• Legal & civil liberty teams working with people in poverty and people who use drugs

• Services for high risk youth

• Non-profit harm reduction paces & social services/outreach teams

• Drug user unions, policy networks & advocacy groups

• Grassroots movements

• Labour unions

• Educators, researchers & community leaders

• *To inquire, please fill out the contact form. For limited budgets please specify in your inquiry for reduced rates*