County to expand harm reduction program

BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

anks to funding from several grants, Arapahoe County Public Health is expanding its harm reduction services to make di erences in more lives across the county.

Harm reduction is a set of ideas and interventions that seek to reduce the harms associated with drug use and ine ective drug policies, according to Arapahoe County’s website.

“It’s an unfortunate fact that people are going to use drugs, whether we’re there or not,” said Clinton Whatley, the harm reduction program manager at the public health department. “We want to make sure that they’re doing it safely and that they can stay alive.” e department o ers HIV, hepatitis C and STI testing, syringe exchange, overdose prevention training and distributes naloxone nasal spray that can treat narcotic overdoses (commonly known as NARCAN®).

In addition, the county health department o ers referrals to resources for mental health, housing, health insurance and treatment services.

New funding, new opportunities ree major grants the county recently received will help expand these o erings to more areas.

One grant, distributed by the Colorado Opioid Abatement Council, comes from funds received from settlements reached by the Colorado Attorney General’s O ce with opioid manufacturers, distributors and retailers.

At the Arapahoe County Health Department, this grant will go towards a new mobile outreach unit that they hope to receive in the next couple of months, Whatley said.

“It will be like a bigger RVtype type vehicle,” he said. “We’ll have running water, sinks, bathrooms, that kind of stu , so folks can do HIV, hepatitis C, STI testing.” e mobile outreach unit will also o er other harm reduction services including syringe exchange. It will not be a mobile supervised injection site, Whatley added. e county is hoping to put funds from a grant from the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment towards adding a new xed site in the Englewood or Sheridan area.

Currently, the county’s harm reduction program has one xed location in Aurora where they o er services and resources in partnership with It Takes a Village, a community organization that aims to reduce health and social disparities among people of color in the Denver Metropolitan area.

“We know the need there along Broadway and that western part of Arapahoe County — the need is signi cant,” Whatley said.

“We’re going to be using the money to kind of work with a community partner out there and, in time, bring on a full-time employee to kind of do a lot of that work and to do a lot of the community engagement in and around the Englewood-Sheridan area.”

Arapahoe County Public Health was also chosen for the Reducing Overdose through Community Approaches Mentorship Program, o ered by the National Association of County and City Health O cials with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“ is funding brings together local health departments through virtual meetings to allow mentors to share their experience and practical knowledge with folks,” Whatley said.

Arapahoe County’s mentor through this program is the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

“We’ve started working with them a couple of months ago,” Whatley said. “I’s really to kind of help strengthen our capacity, help implement those best practices — the evidencebased strategies that work.”

Reducing stigma

Whatley said he is excited for these grants to help reduce stigma around people who use drugs.

People often assume that using drugs is a cause for those who experience homelessness, he said. In reality, many unhoused individuals start using drugs as a response to their situation, in order to stay warm or stay awake and alert for their own safety, Whatley said.

“People use drugs in all walks of life,” he said. “A lot of these folks that we deal with that are unhoused are kind of victims of circumstance and are not necessarily using drugs beforehand.”

In addition, he is looking forward to these services helping to save more lives.

“To meet people where they’re at, and really with a goal of making sure that people are safe because that’s what we want,” he said. “ ey are still people, they should be treated with dignity.”