Grounded in principles of social justice, respect for autonomy, and human rights, harm reduction is rapidly becoming an accepted and celebrated form of treatment for opioid use disorder. Harm reduction refers to strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use, while respecting the autonomy of the person who uses drugs to make decisions regarding their life, care, and substance use.

Recent research has highlighted the significant success the harm reduction approach has had in reducing death and disease from opioid use, however these programs often rest on assumptions of access to treatment for infectious diseases, mental health conditions, and basic primary care services that are often not accessible to individuals who use drugs. Access is limited by stigma, transportation issues, complexity of health conditions, and many other barriers, and this life saving treatment is often unavailable to the most vulnerable individuals.

Courage Medicine is an integrated care, harm reduction organization based in Kensington, Philadelphia, a neighborhood known as the center of the opioid epidemic in the United States. Being at the intersection of the opioid epidemic, a public health crisis and a significantly underserved community has led Courage to develop a harm reduction treatment program specifically geared towards serving the disenfranchised and underserved. The goal of this training is to educate attendees about the need for a more expansive and inclusive definition of harm reduction, to demonstrate the efficacy of our model and to help providers develop the tools necessary to implement the model