Harm Reduction Implementation Guide

How ready is your community or agency to implement harm reduction?

Over 60% of new Aboriginal HIV infections are attributed to injection drug use. In order to put harm reduction into action in any community environment, it is essential that one-on-one and group discussions on the issues take place. This preparation for, and planning of actions for change, can happen step-by-step according to where a community is at with the issues of drug use and harm reduction.

This guide presents options for delivering services to Aboriginal people who are at risk of harm due to their substance use and other social behaviours, and includes the following sections:

- Toward a continuum of services: moving beyond abstinence
- Normalizing harm reduction
- Aboriginal Culture: First Nationals, Métis, Inuit, and beyond
- Harm reduction values and cultural values
- Community readiness and harm reduction implementation: a community perspective
- Stages of community readiness
- Doing harm reduction