The challenges, opportunities and strategies of engaging young people who use drugs in harm reduction: insights from young people with lived and living experience - Harm Reduction Journal

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Young people who use or have used drugs continue to be excluded from harm reduction programming. A Comment article for the Harm Reduction Journal discusses the challenges and opportunities for the future of youth engagement in harm reduction.

Below, we offer our insight on several key issues related to youth engagement in harm reduction, including: youth exclusion from harm reduction programming; youth exclusion from key drug policies and reforms; tokenism in youth engagement. Following this, we offer several recommendations to mitigate these issues.In our experiences, spaces that are meant for young PWUD, but are controlled by older peers, are an obstacle that can be addressed through youth engagement.

Young PWUD are at the forefront of advocating for progressive drug policy reform. Youth-led organisations are spearheading the global drug policy reform movement. Such organizations, often with minimal funding or support from “adult” peers, are promoting the voices, experiences, and expertise of young PWUD at both high-level government forums, as well as the important work of non-governmental committees.

In addition to limited agency and autonomy over decision-making, young PWUD are often only included in consultative roles, to provide comments and feedback on pieces of writing, projects or programmes, that have already been largely developed without their direct involvement. This severely limits the meaningful and transparent impact that young PWUD’s perspectives, often based on their lived experiences or expertise otherwise could have been gained.

 

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Source: BioMedCentral - 🏆 22. / 71 Read more »

Effect of police action on low-barrier substance use disorder service utilization - Harm Reduction JournalBackground Police action can increase risky substance use patterns by people who use drugs (PWUD), but it is not known how increased police presence affects utilization of low-barrier substance use disorder bridge clinics. Increased police presence may increase or decrease treatment-seeking behavior. We examined the association between Operation Clean Sweep (OCS), a 2-week police action in Boston, MA, and visit volume in BMC’s low-barrier buprenorphine bridge clinic. Methods In this retrospective cohort, we used segmented regression to investigate whether the increased police presence during OCS was associated with changes in bridge clinic visits. We used General Internal Medicine (GIM) clinic visit volume as a negative control. We examined visits during the 6 weeks prior, 2 weeks during, and 4 weeks after OCS (June 18–September 11, 2019). Results Bridge clinic visits were 2.8 per provider session before, 2.0 during, and 3.0 after OCS. The mean number of GIM clinic visits per provider session before OCS was 7.0, 6.8 during, and 7.0 after OCS. In adjusted segmented regression models for bridge clinic visits per provider session, there was a nonsignificant level increase (0.643 P = 0.171) and significant decrease in slope (0.100, P = 0.045) during OCS. After OCS completed, there was a significant level increase (1.442, P = 0.003) and slope increase in visits per provider session (0.141, P = 0.007). There was no significant change in GIM clinic volume during the study period. Conclusions The increased policing during OCS was associated with a significant decrease in bridge clinic visits. Following the completion of OCS, there was a significant increase in clinic visits, suggesting pent-up demand for medications for opioid use disorder, a life-saving treatment.
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