The Safe West Hollywood Coalition is hosting a roundtable webinar on substance abuse harm reduction and COVID-19 via Zoom web conferencing, on Wednesday, May 13, at 4pm. Panelists will include staff and clinicians from Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles, Venice Family Clinic, USC Keck School of Medicine, and others who are thought leaders and advocates for harm reduction.
The roundtable will discuss how how substance use affects a COVID-19 diagnosis. It will explore the best practices for harm reduction workers, and what the gaps gaps are in care that currently exist. There will also be an opportunity for Q&A with the panelists towards the end of the discussion.
The Harm Reduction and COVID-19 discussion is aimed at anyone, from community members, elected officials, clinicians, social workers, and people interested in harm reduction.
Alexis Sanchez“The event is meant to build support and awareness for harm reduction efforts as well as highlight some of the gaps in care during this pandemic,” Alex Sanchez, Assistant Program Manager with the Institute for Public Strategies (IPS) told WEHO TIMES. “We’ve heard of a nationwide and county wide spike in overdoses since stay at home ordinances were put into place and wanted to do something to help. We also wanted to educate people on things they can do to stay safe right now. If people do choose to use right now there’s places they can find help and things they can do to protect themselves. No one should have to die of an overdose.”
The panel brings a broad spectrum of panelists together who can speak about what they’re seeing in the community during the pandemic. Speakers will include: Amanda Cowan MS – Clare Matrix, Jesse Goldshear – Department of Preventive Medicine at Keck school of medicine USC, Amber Roth LCSW – Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles, Roger Sediles – APLA Health, and Tobin Shelton LCSW – Summit Program at Venice Family Clinic.
“I hope this is part of a continuing series put on by the Safe WeHo Community Coalition to help build awareness of what the current gaps in care are and how we can work to fill those gaps and make sure everyone in our community is taken care of,” Sanchez added.
To register, click:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/
