Harm reduction is an essential part of homeless services. Experts in the field talk about how they work by these key principles of harm reduction when supporting people experiencing homelessness.
This short video is a product of the Harm Reduction for Homelessness Erasmus Project, which was coordinated by FEANTSA and we were also participants of it. The aim of the HR4Homelessness project is to foster the capacity of homeless services to provide effective Harm Reduction support. HR4Homelessness identified one of the most urgent challenges of homeless services which is to improve HR services for people in situation of homelessness. Until today, people in homelessness who use drugs lack access to HR services, die or get infected with life-threatening diseases. Effective harm reduction is the first crucial step to improve their health situation. The Harm Reduction Key Principles support services in improving HR service provision. In this short video, participants of the project from various countries talk about how they work by these principles. The interviews were collected online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The main activities and outputs of the project were to:
- Develop the Harm Reduction Key Principles which support services in improving HR service provision.
- Provide a 3-days training, based on the Key Principles, targeting frontline staff working with homeless and drug use related services. (All recordings are available here.)
- Produce Country Reports which provide an analysis of the current HR service provision in the partner countries (HU, DK, NL, PT, IE), including strategies and policies, and identify common characteristics of service provision & common denominators of successful interventions. (The reports are available here.)
- Run a Europe-wide survey on current HR service provision by homeless services. Results will be presented in the European Report which will also provide a comparative analysis of current strategies on HR provision in the partner countries and beyond.
- Produce Policy recommendations for policy makers working at local and European levels
- Organize national dissemination events to establish the Harm Reduction Key Principles as best practice and disseminate the project and outputs.
This project has been co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
