Police Week 2022: Meet Melanie Rail

It’s Police Week in Ontario from May 15th-21st, 2022.

Public safety involves a collaborative effort within police agencies and between police services, first responders, as well as social and community organizations.

Meet Melanie Rail, Public Health Sudbury & Districts: 

Q: What is your role/title? What is a typical day like in your role?

A: I’m a public health nurse with the Mental Health and Substance Use team at Public Health Sudbury & Districts, currently collaborating with the Community Drug Strategy (CDS) for the City of Greater Sudbury. The CDS works toward creating awareness around the local drug situation, providing education, reducing stigma, and supporting supervised consumption and treatment services (SCTS) in Greater Sudbury.

My typical day consists of attending meetings with community partners to implement strategies, including education for overdose prevention, supporting the SCTS application, producing and issuing any needed drug alerts or warnings, creating awareness campaigns to educate the public on drug use, and supporting harm reduction strategies such as naloxone distribution to qualifying organizations, education and administration of the needle exchange program.

Q: Why do you love doing what you do?

A: I love learning about the needs of our community and educating others on how to reduce the harms of substance use.

Q: What does your organization’s partnership with the Greater Sudbury Police Service mean to you? How does this partnership benefit the community?

A: Public Health Sudbury & Districts’ partnership with GSPS is important because it’s a great opportunity to work in collaboration with other front-line workers to share information, reduce stigma around substance use, and provide education about various services offered in our community. The community benefits from this partnership through collaboration of our leadership teams and a strong commitment to address the health impacts of substance use. The issues related to substance use are large and require all sectors to work together to support our community.