Syringe Service Alliance of the Nashua Area (SSANA)

WHAT IS SSANA?

SSANA is a syringe service program (SSP) that services the Greater Nashua Region. We are a collection of community partners that have come together to support people with Substance Use Disorder. Our diverse team is composed of outreach workers, volunteers, personnel from a variety of public health and medical settings, health educators, and people with lived experience of substance use disorders and recovery. We are a community initiative for harm reduction. 

WHAT IS AN SSP? 

An SSP is a community-based public health program that provides comprehensive harm reduction service and access to sterile needles/syringes free of cost, along with facilitating the safe disposal of used needles/syringes. 

HOW DO SSPs BENEFIT COMMUNITIES?

Syringe Service Programs: 

1. Reduce new HIV and viral hepatitis infections by decreasing sharing of syringes and other injection equipment. 
2. Reduce drug use through increasing entry into Substance Use Disorder treatment.
3. Reduce needlestick injuries among first responders and the public by removing used syringes from the community. 
4. Reduce overdose deaths by teaching people who inject drugs (PWID) how to prevent and respond to drug overdose. 

WHAT SERVICES DOES SSANA PROVIDE? 

SSANA provides comprehensive harm reduction. Here our some of the supplies and services we provide to individuals accessing our program. 

• Sterile needles, syringes, and injection equipment
• Safe disposal containers for needles and syringes 
• Linkage to HIV and hepatitis testing and treatment
• Overdose prevention education and and access to Narcan
• Referral to substance use disorder treatment, including medication-assisted treatment
• Referral to medical, mental health, and social services
• Tools to prevent HIV, STDs, and hepatitis including counseling, condoms, and vaccinations.

Most importantly we are a friendly face in the community! We hope to remind people who use drugs that they matter, we care about them, and their health matters. 

What is "Harm Reduction" all About?  

Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use. Harm Reduction is also a movement for social justice built on a belief in, and respect for, the rights of people who use drugs.

Harm reduction incorporates a spectrum of strategies from safer use, to managed use, to abstinence, to better meet drug users “where they’re at” and address conditions of use along with the use itself. Because harm reduction demands that interventions and policies designed to serve drug users reflect specific individual and community needs, there is no universal definition of or formula for implementing harm reduction. – NH Harm Reduction Coalition