Patricia Maarhuis, the WSU collegiate recovery administrator, oversees the SWCRSI grant, which supports colleges around the state in starting their own drug harm-reduction programs. The grant is active at seven universities and colleges in Washington. For a school to receive a grant, they must show that their program is largely student-led.
“What’s important is that they hear from students who know about their experiences, and that gives credibility,” Maarhuis said. “The other thing it does is that it’s somebody who’s got life experience and has made changes.”
The importance of student involvement in harm-reduction programs has taken root here. At Seattle University, “peer health educators” lead workshops for students and faculty on how to administer naloxone and what to do in a drug-related emergency. The University of Washington relies on Students for Sensible Drug Policy to stock the Hall Health Center with naloxone and fentanyl testing strips.
When evaluating schools for the grant, Maarhuis wants to see that a program will be able to become self-sufficient once the seed grant expires. At smaller colleges, she has found success embedding this grant money in existing programs, such as the reentry program at SVC. These are known as navigator programs, helping students navigate their time in college.
Maarhuis says four-year universities usually have a health center on campus that can provide harm-reduction resources. Colleges that do not must find alternative ways to provide these resources.
“Two-year colleges are built differently,” Maarhuis explains. “They don’t have their own student health service with the clinic and physicians and nurses. They’ll have a basic-needs department. Which often their navigator program might be tied to. Most likely the harm-reduction stuff is going to be routed through their basic-needs programs.”
Another recipient of the SWCRSI grant is Renton Technical College. They have intertwined their housing initiative with a harm-reduction program, another crossover population.
As Maarhuis puts it, “Harm reduction is the CPR of our time.” She says access to harm-reduction tools is wildly important – mitigating damage while people are using drugs is how to limit overdose deaths.
Meyer and Ward have both become fixtures of their community helping others reclaim their lives. Just a few years ago, however, either of them could have been one moment away from a very different ending. Naloxone and testing strips limit this risk of death.
The community-based approach at SVC provides these resources, along with space and information for those who have chosen to pursue recovery.
For Meyer, that decision came a couple of months after being released from prison when she relapsed.
“I was in trouble with DOC. I was disappointed in myself, I let a lot of people down, including my family, including Genevieve,” Meyer explains. “To tell myself ‘What are you doing?’ for a weekend and look at the damage. I knew I needed to. I was going to get out of it.”
Meyer and Ward are examples of how these spaces and communities build important support networks for those battling substance-use disorder. The SVC model is growing: At Western Washington, an entirely student-organized and -led “breaking free” club is being formed.
Ward graduated SVC with a 4.0 GPA and is now pursuing a degree in human services at Western Washington University. Meyer gets to walk across the stage as a SVC graduate in June. Both of them have not only changed their own lives but helped people around them reclaim their own.
“When you give people equal opportunity and access to education and these resources, you can do anything,” Meyer said. “You have a future. You get self-confidence and self-esteem and knowledge and self-worth and a sense of community, a sense of meaningful purpose in your life.”
Cyrus Storlie
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