Overdose Prevention and Community Safety

Keeping people alive creates the possibility of healing and change.

Overdose deaths are preventable, but lifesaving resources do not always reach the people who need them. Cost, transportation, stigma, limited service hours, fear of judgment, and uncertainty about where to seek help can prevent individuals and families from obtaining naloxone, accurate information, drug-checking supplies, and trusted support.

Save Our Families works to close those gaps through low-barrier, community-based overdose prevention. We provide practical tools that help people recognize an overdose, respond effectively, reduce risk, and connect with additional care when they are ready.

Our approach begins with a simple principle: people deserve access to resources that can keep them alive, regardless of where they are in their lives or whether they are seeking treatment. Safety should never depend on a person’s ability to navigate complicated systems, disclose private information, or prove that they are worthy of help.

Overdose Prevention and Community Safety

Naloxone Distribution

Free Naloxone Access

Naloxone is safe, easy to carry, and available in nasal and injectable forms.

Project Wound Care

Project Wound Care

Access to free wound care supplies to prevent infection and spreading of open wounds.

Free Naloxone Access

Save Our Families provides free naloxone to community members, including:

  • People who use drugs
  • Family members and caregivers
  • Friends and neighbors
  • Business owners and employees
  • Community organizations
  • People who have previously experienced an overdose
  • Anyone who wants to be prepared to respond

A person does not need to use opioids to carry naloxone. Keeping naloxone at home, in a vehicle, at work, or in a community space can prepare bystanders to respond during an emergency.

Naloxone Education

  • Recognizing common signs of an opioid overdose
  • Calling 911 and communicating with emergency responders
  • Administering nasal or injectable naloxone
  • Providing additional doses when needed
  • Supporting breathing while help is on the way
  • Placing someone in the recovery position
  • Remaining with the person until emergency help arrives
  • Replacing naloxone after it has been used or has expired

Naloxone is a temporary intervention. A person can become unresponsive again after receiving it, so emergency medical assistance remains essential.

Free Fentanyl Test-Strip Access

Fentanyl may be present in different substances without a person’s knowledge. It cannot be reliably identified by appearance, taste, or smell. Fentanyl test strips can detect the presence of fentanyl in different drugs and provide information that may help someone make a safer decision.

Save Our Families provides fentanyl test strips along with clear instructions for their use and limitations.

A test strip cannot determine how much fentanyl is present, how potent a substance may be, or whether every portion of a supply contains the same ingredients. A negative result does not guarantee that a substance is free from fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, or other potentially dangerous contaminants.

For that reason, test strips should be treated as one part of a broader safety plan that may also include:

  • Keeping naloxone nearby
  • Making sure another person knows where naloxone is stored
  • Avoiding mixing substances
  • Using a smaller test amount
  • Avoiding using alone
  • Knowing how to contact emergency assistance
  • Seeking medical treatment

Sharps Containers and Biohazard Waste

Used syringes and other sharps can cause needlestick injuries and expose community members, sanitation workers, outreach staff, children, and pets to preventable harm when they are discarded improperly.

Save Our Families supports safer disposal by providing access to sharps containers, when available, and by collecting used syringes and other approved sharps through established biohazard waste procedures. Collected materials are secured and transferred for appropriate treatment and disposal.

Participants can return approved sharps containers without judgment. Returning used supplies does not affect a person’s ability to receive sterile supplies, naloxone, testing, or other support.

What belongs in a sharps container?

Approved containers may be used for:

  • Used syringes and needles
  • Lancets
  • Pen needles
  • Other approved items capable of causing a puncture injury

Used sharps should be placed in a puncture-resistant container immediately after use. Needles should not be recapped, bent, broken, removed, or handled unnecessarily. The FDA recommends using an approved sharps container with puncture-resistant sides, a leak-resistant bottom, and a secure lid.

Safer handling guidelines

  • Place used sharps directly into the container.
  • Keep the container upright and securely closed.
  • Do not reach inside a sharps container.
  • Do not force additional items into a full container.
  • Do not place loose sharps in household trash or recycling.
  • Keep sharps and containers away from children and pets.
  • Follow the fill line and seal the container when it is ready for return.
  • Contact Save Our Families before bringing loose, damaged, leaking, or unusually large containers to the office.

Protecting the Entire Community

Responsible sharps collection is part of overdose prevention and community safety. It reduces the number of improperly discarded syringes in neighborhoods, protects workers and residents from accidental injury, and creates a safer pathway for participants to exchange used supplies for sterile ones.