History
2008
2010
2012
2015
Present

Sterile
Syringe
Access/
Harm
Reduction 		First
Syringe
Exchange/
Albany 		First
Mobile Site/
Schenectady 		Expansion
to
Troy, NY 		Continued
Growth &
Service
Coverage

Project Safe Point began in 2008 in response to an unmet need for sterile syringe access and harm reduction services in the Capital Region. Inititially, the program began in partnership with Centro Civico’s Project Needle Smart as a way to expand accessibility of syringe disposal kiosks then expanded to include our Pharmacy Syringe Access services.
In 2010, Project Safe Point began the region’s first Syringe Exchange program in the South End and Arbor Hill sections of the city of Albany.
2012 saw the addition of our mobile site in Schenectady as well as the implementation of Opioid Overdose Prevention Services.
Our most recent site expansion in 2015 included the city of Troy, with plans to grow into additional areas as well.
As our program continues to grow, we remain forever grateful to the community for its support and to our participants, staff, peers and volunteers for caring enough about the health and safety needs of people who use drugs to do what they do!

What is Harm Reduction?
Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use. Harm reduction incorporates a spectrum of strategies from safer use, to managed use to abstinence to meet drug users “where they’re at,” addressing 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.
Project Safe Point uses harm reduction as a means to not only prevent disease transmission, overdose, and other negative consequences of drug use, but as a way to develop non-judgmental, meaningful relationships with people who use drugs. It is through these relationships that we can provide a vital link to the resources people need or want and to help reduce the stigma associated with drug use.
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