MAP Van Support Worker - Casual

Job Description MAP Van Support Worker

Job Title: MAP Van Support Worker

Hours/Days 10pm - 6am/7 days

Reports to: MAP Van Manager

Classification: Unique

Grid Level: Grid 10

Rate: $29.97/hr

Reporting to the MAP Van Manager, MAP Van Drivers and Support Workers provide mobile outreach services and supports to women (trans inclusive and gender diverse folks) engaged in street-based sex work throughout Vancouver. MAP Drivers and Support Workers work as a team in a fast-paced environment to provide a safe and respectful environment for sex workers to receive resources, referrals and a safe place to take a break.

All WISH employees abide by the guiding principles of WISH by ensuring that each participant is treated with acceptance, caring, dignity and respect, in a non-judgemental manner.

Based in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, WISH is the largest sex worker support organization in Canada. For more than forty years, WISH has offered a safe place of respite for street-based sex workers. The participants who access WISH services and programs are made most vulnerable due to extreme poverty, homelessness, social exclusion, violence, racism, discrimination, and the relentless effects of current and past trauma.

WISH Drop-In Centre Society is an organization and space for women (cis and trans) and people of marginalized genders, including Two-Spirit, trans, and non-binary. For more information about WISH and our programs and services, visit our website:

• Ensure MAP services and resources can be equitably accessed by women in Vancouver’s street-based sex trade in a fair and non-judgemental way.
• Provide support to a constant flow of participants to ensure their access to basic resources, services, and supports, including information and referral, first aid supplies, harm reduction supplies and education, sex work supplies, clothing/toiletries/makeup donations, and snacks.
• Work one-on-one to assess participants’ need for other services and provides them with information on helping organizations and professionals such as community service agencies, counsellors, legal aid lawyers, physicians and mental health services. Recommends appropriate services to participants.
• Provide targeted safety and support by building healthy relationships with all participants, co-creating safety plans with participants, making service referrals, and offering additional supports, as needed and available.
• Provide job-shadowing for new staff. Model appropriate behaviours as well as the mission, vision, and core values of WISH.
• Prepare the van by taking inventory and stocking the van with all necessary materials, supplies, snacks, and beverages.
• Perform first aid duties, provide medical referrals, and/or accompany participants to hospital via taxi in response to critical incidents, as needed.
• Provide overdose prevention and response, and respond to critical incidents in order to maintain the safety of all staff and participants.
• Respond to critical incidents with a trauma-informed lens by implementing immediate crisis intervention techniques in attempt to deescalate participants from anxious or otherwise triggered emotional states; other emotional supports; and/or medical or legal referrals and accompaniments as needed.
• Provide emotional support to participants who have experienced a ‘bad date’ through active listening, debriefing, validating participants’ emotions, and assisting with filling out Bad Date Reports.
• Provide information and support on safety and violence prevention to participants to empower women to make safe and healthy choices for themselves.
• Assist participants in navigating police and other emergency services as needed and liaise as needed.
• Provide appropriate advocacy and…