What is Harm Reduction?

Do you know?

For those who have an idea of what harm reduction is, you may tend to think that we are giving special services to a particular population, but harm reduction benefits everyone.

Harm reduction refers to any effort to reduce the harm in our lives from drugs, alcohol or any behaviour that may cause a negative effect in our life, meaning, it’s any positive step or movement forward. The goal is to keep us safe, while minimizing death, disease and injury in our lives. The focus is on potential harm and goals for improving overall health, rather than on the drug use itself allowing easier engagement for some than with an abstinence based model. It simply allows us to make more informed choices and better decisions, taking personal responsibility while encouraging self empowerment and self management. Harm reduction gives us tools to make better choices for ourselves allowing us to start where we are at and build from there. It respects and accepts what we are able to do and reminds us that we already have valuable skills we can build on. It can lead to behaviour change or not; it gives us an opportunity to do what we do while changing our behaviour at the same time. It finds the positive, without judgment or expectation of change. Harm Reduction serves everyone.

Harm reduction helps us to understand our relationship with whatever we are struggling with so we can make decisions and choices that reduces harm and improves the quality of our life. It involves a range of support services and strategies to enhance our knowledge, skills, resources and supports in our life, in our family’s life and to create a safer, healthier community for all.

Some examples are harm reduction include:

Diabetic Education

Impaired driving prevention

Smoking cessation programs

Peer support programs

Outreach and education programs

Needle Exchange programs

Substitution Therapy

Substance Use Management

Supervised consumption facilities.

By building trust and relationships with people through harm reduction programs, we are able to bring them into contact with other services. These services aim to involve people in their own health by keeping them connected to the health system. While accessing harm reduction services in that moment little do people know that they’re already going down that long road of responsibility or recovery. No matter how chaotic or low on the social rung a person appears to be or feel, they still do have choices especially if we help them and give them the tools to make these choices. The harm reduction philosophy has respect for people’s strengths and love for their differences. Harm reduction is cost effective and a needed link to the continuum of care.

Research shows harm reduction activities can:

Reduce HIV infection and Hepatitis

Reduce overdose deaths and other early deaths among people who use drugs

Reduce injection substance use in public places, and reduce the number of used needles in public places

Reduce the sharing of needles and other substance use equipment

Educate about safer injecting and reduce injecting frequency

Educate about safer sex and sexual health and increase condom use

Reduce crime and increase employment among people who use substance.

Increase referrals to treatment programs and health and social services

For more information about Harm Reduction or support on managing your substance use please contact Deb Summers Sims at East Kootenay Addiction Services Society at 250-489-4344 or speak to any one of our staff members about a new way of looking at addiction recovery with the idea of moving forward through positive change.

East Kootenay Addiction Services Society

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