Heart and Hands: Community Grandparents is a harm reduction-focused, community-based wellness program in Nanaimo, BC—on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw people. Led by Community Grandparents, doulas, social workers, counselors, and outreach workers, the program supports people navigating perinatal and early parenting journeys that involve and/or have involved substance use. Rooted in compassion, cultural safety, and nonjudgmental care, Heart and Hands walks alongside parents and caregivers through connection, advocacy, and community.

This initiative was born from conversations with families who have felt unseen, unsupported, or judged while navigating substance use, pregnancy, parenting, and the healthcare system at large. Heart and Hands offers a warm, inclusive circle of support that welcomes all people—across cultures, backgrounds, identities, abilities, and family structures. It is a space especially attuned to the needs of those who have been marginalized, including Indigenous, newcomer, racialized, queer, trans, non-binary, and disabled parents.

Grounded in the wisdom of Elders (“Community Grandparents”), the practical, trauma-informed care of doulas, and the compassionate support of social workers, counselors, and outreach workers, our model reclaims parenting as a shared, intergenerational journey. It does not seek to replace clinical care, but to complement it—with care that is relational, community-rooted, and built on trust.

This program is not only a service—it is an act of reweaving what has been lost to colonization, migration, stigma, and fragmentation: the relationships and teachings that sustain parents through their most intimate, vulnerable, and powerful times.