About Us
Our Mission
The ABRPO collaborates with organizations to build worker, agency and community resiliency in the face of AIDS-related multiple loss and transition. (As of 2017, our work has expanded to respond to the traumatic grief of the overdose crisis in Ontario.)
Who We Are
The AIDS Bereavement and Resiliency Program of Ontario is made up of staff and facilitators from across Ontario. We have been assisting AIDS service organizations (ASOs), other HIV-related community organizations in Ontario strengthen resiliency in the face of multiple loss and grief since 1994 (and harm reduction programs since 2017). ABRPO’s programs are funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Health, AIDS & Hepatitis C Programs.
ABRPO’s office is located in Tkaronto, the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat, as well as home to many peoples who are displaced by the ongoing legacy of colonization and community devastation. In our dedication to forming resilient communities and individuals, we strive to center our practice in the treaty rights, self-direction and leadership of Indigenous peoples. We acknowledge the Dish with One Spoon Treaty of this territory, which embodies the practices of hospitality, sharing, and mutual respect. We seek to place these values in the centre of our circle of community.
Some of the tools and practices of ABRPO reflect an Indigenous world view, a holistic perspective, and using sharing circles as a way to process both loss and resilience. We are deeply grateful that these teachings have been shared with us.
Our History
1994 – AIDS Bereavement Program of Ontario (ABPO) forms
2002 – 2007 Survive and Thrive program for long term survivors
2007 – Beginning of Turning To One Another (TTOA)
2010 – ABPO renamed as AIDS Bereavement and Resiliency Program of Ontario (ABRPO)
2011 – When Grief Comes to Work published
2017 – Expanded mandate for harm reduction programs
2017 – Good Grief Care pilot for housing and harm reduction programs
2021 – First online learning, Holistic Check-in, released
Our Mandate
The AIDS Bereavement and Resiliency Program of Ontario responds to effectively mitigate the impact of AIDS and overdose-related grief and loss on organizations, staff and volunteers and community members living with HIV/AIDS. To achieve this, we:
- Assist in the assessment and enhancement of individual and agency coping strategies related to loss and transition.
- Develop and deliver agency interventions, educational presentations, workshops, sessions, and research initiatives incorporating evidence-based knowledge and bereavement expertise.
- Provide innovative training to organizations, staff and people living with HIV/AIDS to increase communication skills, peer support and community resiliency strategies.
- Ensure excellence in our work through the development of sustaining, relevant, creative and evolving responses to the changing nature of loss within diverse AIDS-impacted communities.
Guiding Principles
We understand that with the changing nature of HIV and harm reduction, agency personnel and impacted communities are relating to conditions that involve unpredictability, uncertainty and anticipatory grief, in addition to the pre-existing legacy of multiple losses.
We believe that our work must be:
- Grounded in solid theory
- Shaped by the experience of the people we work with
- Linked to people’s broader life experiences
- Framed within a context of equity and inclusion
- Trusting of everyone’s unique capacity to survive, thrive, and make meaning
Who We Serve
ABRPO works with AIDS Service Organizations, HIV programs and Harm Reduction programs funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Health, AIDS & Hepatitis C Programs. Click on the buttons below to see the services we offer to each stakeholder group.