Dignity, health & self-determination
Evidence-informed approaches to substance use, recovery, co-occurring needs, drug-user health, and culturally responsive social-work practice.
Harm reduction pairs practical strategies for reducing injury, overdose, infection, and other harms with respect for autonomy, readiness, and multiple pathways to recovery. Christopher’s approach is nonjudgmental without being passive: engagement, accurate information, collaborative planning, and access to care all matter.
Christopher’s Ph.D. dissertation evaluated a half-day harm-reduction training intervention for social-work practitioners serving LGBTQ clients with substance-use disorders. Guided by Minority Stress Theory, the pretest-posttest study examined practitioner knowledge, readiness, self-efficacy, and connections among sexual-minority status, adverse childhood experiences, substance use, and affirming practice.
Substance use can intersect with trauma, mental health, medications, housing, HIV and hepatitis C, family relationships, criminalization, stigma, identity, and public systems. Integrated practice explores function, context, strengths, risks, motivation, co-occurring needs, and the person’s goals.
At the National Harm Reduction Coalition, Christopher developed and delivered national training and technical assistance on overdose prevention, safer injection and wound care, HIV/HCV, LGBTQ cultural responsiveness, stigma, Housing First, organizational change, and meaningful engagement of affected communities.
Earlier behavioral-health work included counseling, Motivational Enhancement, Seeking Safety, treatment planning, group work, program evaluation, and attention to medication interactions and co-occurring conditions. He treats recovery as personally defined and strengthened by safety, connection, opportunity, and responsive care.
Practice in perspective
