Keynote Address: Ethics and Harm Reduction in SUD Counseling

Harm reduction is broadly defined as a set of strategies and services to promote public health by reducing negative consequences associated with drug use on individuals, their families, and the community. There is a particular focus on improving the quality of life for people who use drugs and reducing their risk of accidental drug overdose and infectious diseases. It includes a range of services that range from overdose prevention education to safe consumption sites. This session describes harm reduction approaches within substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and outlines common ethical dilemmas SUD counselors and other addiction professionals encounter involving harm reduction, person-centered care, and client choice. These conundrums are exacerbated when serving individuals within abstinence-focused programs, when treating or otherwise serving adolescents, when working with court-involved individuals, and when the counselor and client disagree on the treatment plan. 

Objectives

•  Consider if harm reduction principles and services can be an effective approach to substance use counseling, even when abstinence is the goal.
• Explore if certain harm reduction services can be ethically and legally excluded from SUD treatment.
• Determine how to proceed if legal system or employer mandates, treatment program guidelines, or the counselor’s treatment philosophy conflicts with a client’s desire for treatment goals that do not include complete abstinence. 

About Terrence D. Walton

 Terrence Walton is an addiction professional and the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals. For more than 50 years, NAADAC has represented addiction professionals and supported them in their life-saving work.
Before joining NAADAC, Walton spent ten years as Chief Operating Officer for All Rise (founded as the National Association of Drug Court Professionals), where he led national and international initiatives to support addiction treatment and justice system professionals who work with individuals and families impacted by addiction and involved in the legal system.

Previously, Walton was Director of Treatment for the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia (PSA). During his 15 years at this Federal law enforcement and community supervision agency, he directed the departments that provided substance use disorder and mental health assessment, treatment, drug treatment courts, and other alternatives to incarceration and conviction programs. Additionally, he previously served as the director of what was then Washington, D.C.’s leading adolescent outpatient substance use disorder treatment center, Sasha Bruce Youthworks’ Necessary Interventions for Adolescents (NIA).

Walton holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a Master of Social Work degree with specializations in program administration and substance use disorder from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He is an active member of the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP), focusing on developing the global addiction and prevention workforce. He was a certified drug and alcohol counselor for more than twenty years and has devoted his entire professional life to helping individuals, families, and communities impacted by addiction recover and thrive.