In 2022, the Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Providers Administration (SAMHSA) funded 25 awards for its inaugural Harm Reduction Grant Program. Hurt discount is nested all through the continuum of prevention, remedy, and restoration, with a service mannequin that’s strategic, sensible, and transformative.
SAMHSA defines harm reduction as a sensible and transformative strategy that comes with community-driven public well being methods — together with prevention, threat discount, and well being promotion — to empower individuals who use medication and their households with the selection to dwell more healthy, self-directed, and purpose-filled lives. Hurt discount facilities the lived and residing expertise, particularly these in underserved communities, in these methods and the practices that circulate from them.
In 2022 and 2023, SAMHSA workers visited 15 hurt discount grant recipients in states with the best variety of these grantees (California, New York, Texas, and Florida). The positioning visits aimed to reinforce rapport with grant packages’ key workers, present programmatic assist, observe service supply fashions, interact with members of the local people, and develop sensible data of program implementation.
Visiting SAMHSA funded websites throughout numerous contexts allowed us to witness the numerous methods community-driven, person-centered approaches have expanded entry to hurt discount providers. My key take-away from our visits: it is crucial for SAMHSA to assist the individuals who present up day by day of their communities to hold out our shared mission. What resonates most with me is the promise that hurt discount holds: to assist handle the gaps (in inequities and circumstances) that place many individuals at larger threat for overdose and infectious illness.
When doing hurt discount work, it is crucial for all of us to understand that people’ life experiences are distinctive, advanced, and dynamic. As a helpful analogy, take into consideration evaluating folks and mixture locks: simply as every lock has a distinct code (made up of varied numbers), every particular person has a distinct code (made up of quite a lot of environmental situations, financial elements, private assist techniques, and life experiences, reminiscent of opposed childhood experiences and trauma). Very like folks, mixture locks require particular info to unlock them. Every particular person holds the main points wanted to tell the hurt discount methods and interventions finest suited to assist them. Listening, with cultural humility, assists with studying the code.
Harm reduction is a key pillar within the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers’ Overdose Prevention Strategy, and is integrated in SAMHSA’s Strategic Plan. Hurt discount promotes a philosophy of hope and therapeutic. It’s one important element of a complete technique (together with prevention, remedy, restoration, and well being promotion) to stop overdose and save lives.
