WHAT WE DO
Harm Reduction Action Center
Denver Harm Reduction Services
Phone Number
view phone303-572-7800
Address
231 E. Colfax Ave. Denver, Colorado, United States 80203» Leave Testimonial
Program Description
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Harm Reduction Action Center | Denver |
SYRINGE ACCESS |
The Harm Reduction Action Center has committed itself to serving Colorado’s public health by working to reduce the harms associated with drug use. Since 2002, our organization has provided direct services that curb the spread of HIV, Hepatitis C, and accidental overdoses among people who inject drugs. To bolster our direct service efforts, the Harm Reduction Action Center also works closely with lawmakers, healthcare providers, law enforcement, and the general community towards a common vision of a healthy and safe Colorado.
The Harm Reduction Action Center actively demonstrates a commitment to a participant-centered model of service, encouraging participant involvement in all facets of direct service and works to change social, health, and drug policies affecting them most. The Harm Reduction Action Center has been the primary gateway to emergency, health, and human services to injection drug users since June, 2002. By meeting clients “where they are at” in the spectrum of drug use, key elements to the HRAC’s successes include engaging IDUs in decision-making, providing comprehensive and flexible services with a range of commodities, becoming certified as a syringe access program in February 2012, engaging in strategic advocacy, and providing personally meaningful opportunities for Denver’s injection drug users to self-advocate for their needs.
People use drugs. While we wholeheartedly support substance abuse prevention and treatment efforts, we live in reality and know that the most effective way to prevent the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV) is to stop it at its source: the needle. We can assure you, there is a lot of life that happens in between prevention and treatment. Our participants care about their lives and their wellbeing and can make a positive change today.
What is harm reduction?
Harm reduction is a set of clinically-demonstrated practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing the public health risks associated with drug use. Harm Reduction calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs, and the communities in which they live, in order to assist them in reducing harm. Harm Reduction is not the opposite of recovery, but rather a stop-gap that safely prevents imminent and common harms that impact our participants and the public at large.
Who We Serve
The Harm Reduction Action Center provides direct services to people who inject drugs. By improving the healthcare outcomes for those most at-risk of contracting and spreading communicable disease, we also serve to improve the overall public health of the greater Denver community.
Our Programs
The Harm Reduction Action Center offers direct services to people who inject drugs. Learn more, here. In addition to providing direct services to people who inject drugs, the Harm Reduction Action Center is committed to educating and supporting healthcare professionals, law enforcement, and community organizations wishing to reduce the acute and chronic harms associated with drug use.
We provide educational presentations to organizations on a by-request basis. Want us to visit your organization? Email us at: [email protected]
Our Mission
The mission of the Harm Reduction Action Center is to educate, empower, and advocate for the health and dignity of Denver’s injection drug users, in accordance with harm reduction principles.
These are the harm reduction principles in which we adhere.
- Accepts, for better and or worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them. Understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from severe abuse to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.
- Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being–not necessarily cessation of all drug use–as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
- Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
- Ensures that drug users and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.
- Affirms drugs users themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use, and seeks to empower users to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of use.
- Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm.
- Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger associated with licit and illicit drug use.