9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Track One

Sal Corbin
Maryland Harm Reduction Training Institute (MaHRTI)
Restorative Justice
Restorative Justice is a philosophy and set of practices that engage the community in building healthy relationships and repairing harm through inclusive dialogue, deep understanding, and shared power. By incorporating restorative justice practices into a program’s harm reduction framework, we can begin to provide a healthy community and a meaningful voice to PWUDs, sex workers, and all others that we serve. This session will address trust and empowerment in the areas of restorative inquiries (staff-participant delivery) and restorative circle techniques (harm reduction support groups).

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Track Two

Harriet Smith
Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition
Beyond Wound Care: The Relationship Between Wounds and Self-Injury
We often think of injection related wounds and self-injury in completely different ways, and for many people they are unrelated topics. There are, however, people for whom these issues are related. In this session we will establish a safe space and explore practical strategies to address the possibility of wound care and self-injury overlap, including how to ask about current or past self-injury, strategies to discern when it is appropriate to ask, and how to be a source of support.

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Track Three

Alex Wilson
SPARC
What Does It Mean To Be 'Low-Barrier'?
This workshop asks us to reconcile our abilities as service providers while understanding that the demands of clients’ lives are complex. As service providers, we must navigate our own internalized biases and the structural forces that bear down on our communities. These biases shape the material realities and livelihoods of our clients, which re-affirms the necessity of providing dynamic and reachable services. Thus, attendees will leave this workshop with a deeper understanding of what it means to be low barrier along with tools for making their spaces more accessible to people who use drugs and people who sell sex (recognizing that these are not mutually exclusive terms).

10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Track One

Miatta Kani-Goba, Organizer
Gassoh Goba, Organizer
Jacqueline Robarge, Power Inside
Survival Sex
People engaged in sex trade face harms rooted in systemic oppression, such as economic and racial injustice, in addition to risks to health and wellbeing. Holistic harm reduction for sex workers includes policy change, housing and healthcare access, and economic justice. In this interactive workshop, participants will learn the differences between sex trafficking, sex work, and survival sex and why that matters. We will hear from sex workers and allies about strategies to make our programs accessible and safe as well as discuss the structural and policy issues that are often overlooked by health practitioners.

10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Track Two

Nina Ovian
On Our Own of MD, Inc.
"My Friend is High and Freaking Out, What Do I Do?" - Responding to a Substance-Induced Mental Health Crisis
With the growing number of Mental Health First Aid and Overdose response trainings offered, there is a clear need for peer and community based responses to behavioral health crises. These are vital tools in reducing the violence and trauma that often accompany these types of crises, especially as a way to keep people out of the criminal justice system. This training seeks to expand on this by discussing how to respond to behavioral health crises that involve substance use but not overdoses. Participants will gain practical tips and information on both responding during a crisis and how to provide after-care.

10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Track Three

Sandy Kerrigan, Sara Howell, Mike Trader
Worcester County Health Department
It Takes a Village
Rural areas tend to have fewer services available and fewer providers, but also present the opportunity to develop close relationships among a variety of partners, to improve outcomes for those we serve. Through prioritizing partnerships, we are able to address gaps in services and reach those who may otherwise be missed. During this interactive session, attendees will learn strategies to build stronger partnerships in their own communities and to develop innovative ways to reach a community in need.

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Track One

Harriet Smith - Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition
Laura Bartolomei-Hill - Maryland Department of Health
Harm Reduction and a More Just World
We need to understand how harm reduction fits into our work towards a just and equitable world, however this is often overlooked as it takes deeper discussion. This session will explore how racial justice, in particular, is central to harm reduction work and how harm reduction is central to the movement for racial justice. The session space will demand self-knowledge, deep reflection, and willingness to engage but it will also be joyful and generative.

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Track Two

Lisa Connors
4Ks Coaching and Training Solutions, LLC
Hey, What about Me? I Need to Grieve too!
Staff, peers, and others who have served and supported those experiencing addictions are not always allowed to grieve when their clients and patients die. This session will serve as a safe space for participants by facilitating hands-on exercises that explore the various components of grief and loss, especially from a workplace perspective. Participants will learn coping methods and strategies and how loss affects individuals physically, emotionally, cognitively, behaviorally, and spiritually.

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Track Three

Emily Heinlein - Maryland Harm Reduction Training Institute (MaHRTI)
Ron Phillips - BMORE Power
Building Healthy Programs: How Do We Structure Harm Reduction Programs to Promote Staff Wellbeing?
The goal of this session is to motivate you to be part of building harm reduction programs that support staff wellbeing! We will imagine possibilities, learn about what is working elsewhere and brainstorm ways to overcome barriers. By the end of this session, you will be able to describe ways to structure harm reduction programs to promote staff health and prevent burnout, define barriers to staff health and wellbeing, and identify action steps to apply in your own workplaces to shift the organization towards promotion of staff wellbeing.

3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Track One

Rajani Gudlavalleti, Owen O’Keefe, Scott Cecil
Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition
Special Meeting of Maryland Harm Reduction Action Network!
This session will serve as both an introduction to the Maryland Harm Reduction Action Network (MHRAN) and as a chance to gather for those who need no introduction. MHRAN has served as a monthly space for collaborative learning, relationship building, and taking action to increase the awareness and implementation of harm reduction throughout the state. This conference is a perfect opportunity to assess, gather steam, and continue to do that work.

3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Track Two

Cola Anderson - Power Inside
Onyịnye Alheri - Communities United
Just Us: An Unfiltered Dialogue Among TLGBQIA+ People
This session is closed to Trans, Gender Non Conforming, Non Binary, Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (TLGBQIA+) people. In this session we will create a safe space for TLGBQIA+ harm reductionists to explore common examples of gatekeeping and biases that advantage those outside of the community and struggles. We will discuss hypervisibility, disclosing drug use to employers, our ability to use and buy drugs safely, and how we uniquely and creatively keep each other safer on a daily basis. Together, we will expand the scope of what the Trans and Queer communities need to be well within the harm reduction movement.

3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Track Three

Poster Presentations
Trevor Tsu - Maryland Department of Health
HIV Among People Who Inject Drugs in Maryland
This presentation will examine the risk and control of HIV infections among those who share needles and syringes to inject drugs. Injection drug use (IDU) was the leading cause of new HIV diagnoses in Maryland from 1988 to 2001. Although both the number of new diagnoses and the percent of those diagnoses attributed to IDU has decreased in Maryland over the past 3 decades, the proportion of new HIV diagnoses attributed to IDU has increased slightly in recent years. This may indicate that progress in decreasing new diagnoses in this risk group may be stalling relative to other risk groups.

Abigail Winiker - Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Individual and Interpersonal Sources of Violence and Resilience Among a Diverse Sample of Transgender Women in Los Angeles
Among Transgender women (TGW), resilience has been shown to be protective against the adverse impacts of violence, discrimination, and stigma. However, gaps remain in understanding the ways in which resilience factors may differ for TGW facing additional minority stressors, such as race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. This study aimed to identify individual and interpersonal determinants of violence and trauma as well as resilience and coping strategies to reduce the harm of violence and improve mental and physical health outcomes among a racially diverse sample of TGW in Los Angeles.

Montressa Tripps - Behavioral Health Systems Baltimore
Music as a Healing Influence in Harm Reduction Support Groups
Music and art therapy have long been used as supportive techniques in recovery. There are points in every song that can strike a chord and soothe overwhelming emotions that can come from grief due to loss. Revisiting this grief with music during group sessions can promote harm reduction by meeting individuals where they are and serve as a way for them to become present in their memory as they develop understanding about the phases of grief. This presentation will explore how music is a universal emotion navigator, provide examples of music and art facilitating the grief process, and offer understanding of how music can encourage a gentle approach to visiting painful memories.

Carmen Skarlupka - Team River Runner
Recreation Therapy for People Diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury and Substance Use Disorder
This presentation will provide participants with an overview of the COMPACT ACT 2020 – Recreation Therapy as covered healthcare treatment for Recovery, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, Depression diagnoses and Suicide prevention. As well as an overview of clinical protocols in TBI diagnosis for survivors of non-fatal opioid overdoses, Recreation Therapy categories and nonprofit service providers, and the advantages of health insurance coverage for Recreation Therapy, especially as it relates to harm reduction.