​Patty Wilson
​President

Patty Wilson is a Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner and started working as a Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner in Northern BC in 2016 and later moved to Calgary.

Her clinical experience includes outreach harm reduction settings, detox, opioid agonist therapy, including injectable opioid agonists, and prescribed safe supply.

She completed an Addiction Fellowship in 2021 through the BC Centre on Substance Use and focused on program development and advocacy.  Patty has a passion for low-barrier, client-centred care, and advocates for this approach in all settings.

Rachael Edwards
​Vice President

​Rachael has spent the last 14 years working as a nurse in community health, infectious disease, clinical education and shelter/street outreach programs practicing a harm reduction philosophy of care. With extensive experience in program development, clinical teaching, and community engagement, Rachael is highly respected in her field of practice. Rachael was integral in the development and implementation of end-of-life care programming for vulnerable populations through the Calgary Allied Mobile Palliative Program (CAMPP), and most recently with the Assisted Self Isolation Site in response to the COVID-19 pandemic response for people who use substances and are experiencing homelessness. Rachael is a tireless advocate for low-threshold service provision, in the hopes of eliminating barriers for people who traditionally experience challenges in accessing health and social care services. Through her 14 years at the CUPS and 6 years with the CUPS Liver Clinic, Rachael has specialized in advocacy, education, screening, counselling and treatment of hepatitis C—this experience culminated in Rachael developing a strategic model for onsite and outreach liver clinics. Rachael is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health through the University of Victoria.

Sarah Watkins
​Treasurer

Sarah is by background a critical care nurse who developed a passion for harm reduction during her RN to BSN education at University of Victoria, during which she had the opportunity to complete a capstone project at Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS) and Alpha House in downtown Calgary. She transferred lessons learned at these sites to guide her nursing practice in acute care. She currently works as a Coordinator for Medical Assistance in Dying at Alberta Health Services and is entering the final year of a double masters program at the University of Calgary for a Master of Nursing/Master of Business Administration, in which she is currently doing a scoping review of perspectives of acute care nurses of harm reduction implementation. Sarah has a passion for integration of harm reduction principles into acute care and for education of acute care nurses in principles of harm reduction.

Kathleen (Kate) Leslie 
Communications Director
​@leslie20kk

Kate is a Registered Nurse who is currently the Patient Care Manager of a Long Term Care centre in rural Alberta and is currently pursuing a Masters of Nursing through Athabasca University, specializing in leadership and teaching.  Despite her current role, her professional priorities continue to be focused on contributing to improving the well being of vulnerable and underserved Albertans, as well as supporting nurses in all practice areas in implementing harm reduction principles into their daily practice. She also sits as the President for the board of directors for ARCHES (AIDS Outreach Community Harm Reduction Education Support Society) in Lethbridge, and is passionate about ensuring that harm reduction programs are accessible to those residing in rural communities. 

For the past 7 years she has been working in mental health/treatment centres, detox facilities, outreach programs, and supervised consumption sites. Familiar with the nuances involved in health care delivery in continuing care, mental health, addictions, and community, Kate aims to make significant contributions to the local, provincial, and national conversations about wellness, health, governance and accountability.
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Genevieve Eggen
​Board Member

Hi! My name is Genevieve and I am a nurse in Treaty 6 territory. I have worked as an addictions and mental health RN since 2019. I joined ANCHR in 2020. I am an avid mountain biker and music festival lover!

Alana Wade
​​Secretary

Alana is a dedicated Registered Nurse with over 10 years frontline experience serving marginalized populations within a range of settings including corrections, community, inpatient and outreach. Her knowledge and expertise has been gained providing compassionate care across ages youth to senior including focused evidence-based approaches for palliative, chronic pain and prenatal care.

Alana has made significant nursing contributions driven by her unwavering passion for harm reduction. She held a pivotal role supporting the establishment of Alberta's first iOAT clinic in 2018 and was redeployed in 2020 to co-create a pandemic-initiated outreach response that focused on OAT management and transmission reduction. After continued success in client retention and engagement, further development efforts resulted in a multidisciplinary outreach treatment service called the MOAT (mobile opioid agonist therapy) team. Alana's nursing practice continues within this outreach role, utilizing a wrap-around care model to provide trauma-informed, complex case and crisis management and system navigation with the goal of barrier and stigma reduction. She firmly believes the community holds responsibility to address the needs of the most vulnerable and must take swift action against the poisoning crisis. Alana hopes to utilize her ANCHR position to further harm reduction practices, education and advocacy efforts in nursing.

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Michael Lee 
Secretary 

Bio coming soon!