Roundtable: Saving Our Own Lives: Lessons Learned from Harm Reduction and Mutual Aid

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract/Description

In these tumultuous times, with increasing food and housing insecurity, substance use, and overdose deaths, harm reduction and mutual aid can offer pragmatic solutions that prioritize meeting people where they are, rather than imposing rigid frameworks that may exacerbate existing challenges. While best known for its responses to substance use, harm reduction offers evidence-based strategies and approaches to save lives and provide ways to understand behavior and culture that have relevance far beyond drugs. Despite their effectiveness, harm reduction and mutual aid initiatives encounter barriers such as policies, misinformation, and gaps in existing systems that can perpetuate harm and disproportionately affect marginalized and criminalized communities. Discussants will explore the successes and challenges of their local harm reductions and mutual aid efforts and brainstorm future opportunities and how others might get involved in their local communities.

Sub Unit

• Area XIV. Roundtables

Chairs

• Danielle Stoneberg, West Virginia University

• Brooke D. Baker, Marymount University

Discussants

• Jaime Burns, University of Central Oklahoma

• F.M. Jones, University of Central Oklahoma

• Stephen T. Young, Marshall University

• Laura Lynn Lightfoot, Arizona State University

• Andrew Robert Burns, Louisiana State University, Social Research and Evaluation Center

• Dina Perrone, California State University, Long Beach