Over and over, harm reduction leaders interviewed for Space Hacks centered the creation of community as central to their efforts to create safe, humane harm reduction spaces services that are trauma-informed and minimize the potential for escalated situations.

People, leaders noted, who are protective of their community will help ensure potentially escalated situations are diffused before they become an issue. Ergo, working at creating community is an essential component in ensuring safer services.

Community minded spaces and services also attract participants who are in need of services because they help folks feel safe enough to engage with other services such as getting safety supplies, medical care, MAT, or other services.

Community can be defined as having the following features:

• A Sense of Shared Values
• Support and Cooperation
• Inclusivity and Diversity
• Communication and Interaction
• Sense of Belonging
• Mutual Responsibility
• Celebration and Tradition
• Empowerment and Participation

Many organizations fail to consider the question of creating/maintaining community when they do strategic and program planning, leaving it to emerge organically. This strategy sometimes works in community-driven grassroots CBO’s, but not as well in large organizations, health departments, or those in which a preponderance of staff do not live or work in the community they are serving.

For the purposes of the Hacks, “community” can be divided into internal and external community. Your Internal community are the folks “inside” your organization—your staff, volunteers, Board members, participants, and donors can be thought of as your internal community—folks already vested in and committed to your work. Your external community is everyone else in the regional area where you live.

The primary focus in terms of community with regard to creating safer harm reduction services and spaces is on cultivating the internal community. Especially the community between staff and participants.

It cannot be over-emphasized how essential it is for harm reduction service providers to create a sense of camaraderie and shared community with their participants. Not only will this ensure better services are provided and thus more lives are saved, but it will also ensure that, in the event that something begins to escalate, community members will be much more likely to intervene on behalf of staff and to contribute to de-escalating the situation rather than making it worse.

Harm reduction leaders provided dozens of anecdotes of participants who, because they were committed to the organization’s community, insured the safety and security of that community. Conversely, they also provided examples where organizations that did not create community found themselves with serious issues.