Sheltering One Another: Community Care for Harm Reduction Providers | December 7, 2021
Date of Presentation: December 7, 2021
Type: Past Presentation
Audience: Clinical Community
Program: Harm Reduction
Keywords: #grief #harm reduction #self care #sustainability
Today’s presentation is from Jess Tilley and Albie Park, founders of Harm Reduction Works (HRW). HRW is a replicable, mutual-aid based support meeting project. Jess and Albie will be focusing on strategies for harm reduction service providers to avoid burnout and support each other while doing difficult work in the community. Self-care is important, but community care is also needed in order for harm reduction providers to feel seen, heard, understood, and supported.
Recording:
Presented by:
Jessica Tilley and Albert Park
Jess has well over 20 years experience as a harm reduction practitioner, advocate, and organizer and is the Executive Director of NEUU (The New England Users Union). Respected by the harm reduction community world wide, she is in high demand as a trainer and consultant. She moved to Western MA in 2012 after leaving her position as Overdose Prevention Coordinator/Site Manager of the Cambridge Needle Exchange at AIDS Action Coalition. Despite the existence of fixed syringe access programs in Western MA, she is keenly aware of underserved and unserved populations of drug users specifically marginally housed and homeless youth, sex workers and Latino and African American communities, many of whom are distrustful of institutionalized health care.
She is passionate about harm reduction and focused on growing the movement and raising the voices of marginalized people.
Albie’s background is as a harm reduction therapist licensed in CA. He was one of the original counselors at The Stonewall Project, a program of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Stonewall, founded by Michael Siever is a low/no threshold outpatient harm reduction treatment program for gay and heteroflexible men and MSM. Albie began his career in traditional 12 step abstinence based treatment. His evolution into a staunch harm reductionist grew out of a need for the broadest choices for people to identify issues and strategize solutions as wanted, needed and agreed to. This might include 12 step and abstinence. However, Albie makes a distinction between the program and the people in the program. Sometimes, people are not interested in total abstinence and focus on some problematic substance of choice only. In general, people’s goals address frequency of use, method of ingestion, duration of use and or quantity of substance used. Sometimes people want only to reduce the harm associated with use. Others, might want to talk about what is going on and decide to change nothing. His simple philosophy is people need to find whatever works for them.
Resources Provided:
Date added: December 7, 2021
