• Home
  • About
  • Table of Contents
    • Street College >
      • Introduction >
        • History of Why?
        • What are Street College, Street School, SC Essentials?
        • Facilitator Readiness
      • Everyday Best Practice Recommendations >
        • Confronting Stigma
        • Understanding Intersectional Systems of Oppression
        • Real life needs of folks on the drug war front line
        • Staff self-care and burnout prevention
      • Using These Tools >
        • Meeting folks where they are at
        • Praxis assessment
        • Letting go of prescribed outcomes
        • Taking leadership from service users
        • Interagency Collaboration
      • Modules >
        • Lesson Plan Template
        • Blood Borne Infections
        • Getting Tested
        • Navigating Health Care
        • Party Safe - Integrating Harm Reduction Into How We Use
        • Overdose Prevention & Naloxone
        • Safer Injection Practices
        • Safer Inhalation Practices
        • First Aid
        • Stigma
        • Living Outside
        • Drug Checking
        • Communication
        • Peer Support
      • Interactive Games and Activities
    • The Meth Booklet >
      • Introduction
      • Meth 101
      • History in Brief
      • Ways People Use
      • Reducing Meth’s Harm
      • Where Are You At?
      • Meth Psychosis
      • The Crash
      • Overdose
      • Treatment / Taking a Break
      • Sex & Meth
      • Links for Further Reading
  • Contact
ANKORS Street College
  • Home
  • About
  • Table of Contents
    • Street College >
      • Introduction >
        • History of Why?
        • What are Street College, Street School, SC Essentials?
        • Facilitator Readiness
      • Everyday Best Practice Recommendations >
        • Confronting Stigma
        • Understanding Intersectional Systems of Oppression
        • Real life needs of folks on the drug war front line
        • Staff self-care and burnout prevention
      • Using These Tools >
        • Meeting folks where they are at
        • Praxis assessment
        • Letting go of prescribed outcomes
        • Taking leadership from service users
        • Interagency Collaboration
      • Modules >
        • Lesson Plan Template
        • Blood Borne Infections
        • Getting Tested
        • Navigating Health Care
        • Party Safe - Integrating Harm Reduction Into How We Use
        • Overdose Prevention & Naloxone
        • Safer Injection Practices
        • Safer Inhalation Practices
        • First Aid
        • Stigma
        • Living Outside
        • Drug Checking
        • Communication
        • Peer Support
      • Interactive Games and Activities
    • The Meth Booklet >
      • Introduction
      • Meth 101
      • History in Brief
      • Ways People Use
      • Reducing Meth’s Harm
      • Where Are You At?
      • Meth Psychosis
      • The Crash
      • Overdose
      • Treatment / Taking a Break
      • Sex & Meth
      • Links for Further Reading
  • Contact

​Confronting Stigma

Confronting Stigma

The negative presumptions and judgements that affect people who use drugs, are homeless, work in sex work, or are otherwise marginalized in our society are called STIGMAs. 
When we explore the topics explored in Street College, stigmas will present themselves. The negative stories that we hold about ourselves and each other, based on cultural scripts can involve some of (or variations of) the following:

  • Drug users should get sober and “contribute to society”.
  • Sex work is inherently exploitative.
  • People who continue to use opioids in today's conditions have no will to live. 

Service providers, peers and community members can all hold and demonstrate stigma in a variety of ways including:

  • Discounting the desires, capacities or potential of drug users based on their use histories
  • Dismissing individuals/desires as drug or attention seeking

Discrimination that results from societal stigma has real impacts on people who use drugs, people who are perceived to use drugs, and other overlapping experiences of marginalization. Challenging discriminatory practices on large meaningful levels requires individuals, as well as the systems they work within, to challenge beliefs that have become cultural norms. This is a work that non-drug users must engage in, in ways that may involve compassion, empathy, listening and theoretical shifts. Drug users also carry an internalized stigma, and this work still requires compassion but is one of personal healing, competence and confidence building. 

Utilizing tools (like the resource below from The Harm Reduction Coalition) to explore and dismantle stigma is a key part of engaging peers respectfully. 

http://harmreduction.org/issue-area/issue-drugs-drug-users/understanding-drug-related-stigma/

Stigma Presentation from AVI: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tLk3d8q8WcMtF0-UJFgYNeeMFgDBFlC-xxCe7LfsjTQ/edit?usp=sharing

See also: STIGMA Section here.
ANKORS Street College - ©2020/21
  • Home
  • About
  • Table of Contents
    • Street College >
      • Introduction >
        • History of Why?
        • What are Street College, Street School, SC Essentials?
        • Facilitator Readiness
      • Everyday Best Practice Recommendations >
        • Confronting Stigma
        • Understanding Intersectional Systems of Oppression
        • Real life needs of folks on the drug war front line
        • Staff self-care and burnout prevention
      • Using These Tools >
        • Meeting folks where they are at
        • Praxis assessment
        • Letting go of prescribed outcomes
        • Taking leadership from service users
        • Interagency Collaboration
      • Modules >
        • Lesson Plan Template
        • Blood Borne Infections
        • Getting Tested
        • Navigating Health Care
        • Party Safe - Integrating Harm Reduction Into How We Use
        • Overdose Prevention & Naloxone
        • Safer Injection Practices
        • Safer Inhalation Practices
        • First Aid
        • Stigma
        • Living Outside
        • Drug Checking
        • Communication
        • Peer Support
      • Interactive Games and Activities
    • The Meth Booklet >
      • Introduction
      • Meth 101
      • History in Brief
      • Ways People Use
      • Reducing Meth’s Harm
      • Where Are You At?
      • Meth Psychosis
      • The Crash
      • Overdose
      • Treatment / Taking a Break
      • Sex & Meth
      • Links for Further Reading
  • Contact