Island Health has recognized Kalla Shields for her efforts to promote harm reduction awareness and training at Frances Kelsey Secondary School in Mill Bay. On June 3, the 2025 Youth Harm Reduction Award was given to Shields, a Grade 12 student at the school.
Pictured (left to right): Kevin van der Linden, principal, Frances Kelsey Secondary School; Kalla Shields, 2025 award winner; Jenna Patterson and Jessica Huston, Island Health’s Addiction Medicine and Substance Use program.
“Congratulations to Kalla Shields for the inspiring work that she has done for her community,” said Josie Osborne, Minister of Health. “Her courage to lead, educate, and save lives through the Hummingbird Project is nothing short of inspiring. I can’t wait to see where Kalla goes after graduating high school – I’m sure she will do amazing things.”
Shields’s efforts, in collaboration with Toward the Heart, school administration and Island Health, included providing more than 50 students and staff at her school with naloxone training – a vital response to opioid poisonings that can save lives. Naloxone kits have also been placed in key school locations and more than 40 Take Home Naloxone kits were provided to participants in the training sessions. Since those sessions, Shields has also mentored younger student leaders to take on the project next year and continue its legacy.
Shields called her initiative the Hummingbird Project, based on a Métis teaching that her mother shared with her as a child. “It’s about a hummingbird that, when faced with a raging fire, doesn’t run away but instead carries water, drop by drop, to put it out,” she said. “When asked if it’s really making a difference, the hummingbird simply says, ‘I’m doing what I can.’”
Shields pursued her project following the drug poisoning of one of her peers in 2021. Thankfully Shields was able to respond with naloxone and the person survived. “That experience has undoubtedly left a lasting impact on me, but the silver lining was that it planted the seed for what would eventually become the Hummingbird Project,” she said. “More than anything, I really hoped this project would make students and staff feel supported, empowered to help, to talk openly about harm reduction and to create a safer community together.”
Jessica Huston, regional manager for Island Health’s Addiction Medicine and Substance Use program, said Shields’s efforts captured the tenets of harm reduction. “The Hummingbird Project highlighted how each of us can make a significant difference through our actions, no matter how small,” she said. “We are so impressed with the work she achieved to make a difference.”
Tara McKinley, a teacher and mentor at Frances Kelsey Secondary, highlighted Shields’s leadership, dedication to community service and commitment to positive change. “By getting students and staff trained in naloxone use and making sure naloxone kits are easily accessible, Kalla has helped ensure our school community is better prepared in case of an emergency,” she said. “The project has also made a huge difference in how we talk about substance use by breaking down stigma and opening up more compassionate conversations among students and staff.”
Shields hopes to continue supporting harm reduction when she attends university in the fall; her long-term goal is to go to medical school and become a neuropsychiatrist. “I’m especially passionate about advocating for culturally safe, trauma-informed mental health and substance use care, particularly for youth and Indigenous communities,” she said.
Island Health’s annual Youth Harm Reduction Award is open to people under 19 who live in the Island Health region. Projects focused on public health harm reduction in their communities are eligible. Applications are reviewed typically in April, with the recipient announced in June.
Harm reduction aims to reduce negative health, social and legal impacts associated with a range of activities. Widely accepted practices include the use of seatbelts and bike helmets, condoms, speed limits and sunscreen. Regarding the toxic drug crisis, harm reduction often refers to safer ways to consume substances, safer substance use supplies and the use of naloxone to reduce the effects of drug poisonings from opioids.