Community Event: Harm Reduction during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Strategies from the Field
Brought to you by The National Council for Mental Wellbeing
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in consequential impacts on harm reduction organizations and people who use drugs, including a devastating increase in overdose death in the U.S. by nearly 30% in 2020 compared to 2019. Despite facing significant hardships during the pandemic, harm reduction organizations rapidly adopted innovative and adaptive strategies to continue to provide life-saving services and care to their communities. To support harm reduction efforts during the pandemic, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), administered $500,000 in grants to 16 harm reduction organizations across the country. Grantees implemented a range of strategies, including mobile and mail-based supply distribution models, expanded virtual peer support and harm reduction services and linkage to telehealth-based buprenorphine treatment, among many others.
Attendees of this webinar will hear directly from harm reduction experts from the field about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on harm reduction and harm reduction strategies that can be adapted and replicated to better serve the needs of people who use drugs. Results from a comprehensive environmental scan on the pandemic’s impact on harm reduction will also be discussed.