OnPoint NYC’s Holistic Services: Healing, Education, and Power
OnPoint NYC’s unique holistic services follows in the footsteps of pioneering programs in harm reduction’s past – it not only serves as medicine for our participants’ mind, body, and spirit, but fosters outreach, community, activism, and personal change. Operating in the community, as well as our East Harlem and Washington Heights locations, our holistic practitioners offer a variety of free alternative medicine services free-of-charge. These practices – such as acupuncture, massage, and reiki – are performed to help heal physical and mental pain, manage trauma and anxiety, and curtail drug cravings.
To shed light on this important program, we spoke with Juan Cortez, Holistic Services Manager, on the services offered, its philosophy and goals, and overall impact.
Holistic Services as Healing
OnPoint’s Holistic Services are offered outside at tabling and community outreach events, as well as daily at our two centers. Participants often learn about the program at their intake or case management sessions with OnPoint staff, but our holistic practitioners also provide daily outreach and services in our Drop-in Centers and Overdose Prevention Centers to further spread the word.
For those that encounter these services outside in the community, it often serves as people’s first point of contact for OnPoint’s harm reduction services. “We’ll work alongside the outreach teams and we’ll do health fairs,” explains Juan. “Most people that we engage never knew this was available to them.”
Those that receive these services, particularly the visually-distinctive ‘seeds and beads’ ear acupuncture, often share the info with others – “One of our biggest marketers are our own participants,” he shares.
For those that seek out services at our centers, our dedicated on-site Holistic Services space is a spa-like environment that sets the stage for healing and serenity.
“We made it so beautiful and so relaxing that when people first walk in, the first thing that comes out of their mouth is ‘Wow,’’ says Juan. “And then we say, ‘Welcome home.’ And just that energy before we even engage the person on the seat and place those needles, that’s healing.”
Each of the services offered are specifically tailored to the needs of those in our community, seeking to ease the negative impacts that the criminalization of drug use has had on their lives:
Developed by harm reduction pioneers specifically as a detox aid, this is the most popular and widespread treatment we provide. Known as five-point/NADA protocol, the practice consists of placing five needles in specific sites in each ear, with each point working to promote mental health and detoxify organs. For those that dislike needles or prefer a less invasive treatment, the ‘seeds and beads’ method may be used, in which small seeds or beads are attached to the ear instead of needles.
As Juan shares, it is called “the unspoken treatment because it addresses the stress, the trauma, the anxiety, the cravings for drug use, without having to say a word. The goal behind it is one of helping people manage trauma, stress, anxiety, but also to help people in their [recovery] journey…some people use it to detox off of drugs, some people use it as a way to manage their drug use, and some people use it as a form of maintenance. And the protocol is exactly the same for each individual.”
Through a partnership with students at Pacific College of Eastern Medicine, we provide bodily acupuncture and massage therapy to ease everyday physical pain. Additionally, OnPoint NYC staff are trained in acupressure, which provides pressure on acupuncture points to relieve stress.
Reiki, a Japanese form of healing, uses light touch to promote relaxation. OnPoint NYC provides this both on-site and in the community.
OnPoint NYC practitioners utilize a variety of sound healing tools to promote mental wellness – including sound bowls, gongs, and more. As Juan shares, they currently do a “group sound therapy,” but there are plans for individualized sessions in the future.
Our staff have seen numerous examples of the benefits that these services have on our participants.
Services such as ear acupuncture “allow the person to start the healing process, and along with mental health counseling – with support groups and case management – and getting them the tools that they need, it helps them to achieve their goals,” says Juan.
He has personally seen participants who have used these services to maintain recovery or stabilize their drug use, stay on track to achieve housing and vocational goals, and even one who was inspired to learn holistic techniques and open their own private practice.
Holistic Services as Power
Our Holistic Services programming goes beyond receiving treatment, however – the program is a means of knowledge, change, and action. Alternative medicine techniques have historically been used by harm reduction pioneers to heal and educate – and we aim to continue the movement.
A major tenet of the program is education – part of receiving these services is understanding and acknowledging their history.
“We ask people to come in here and receive treatments for free,” says Juan. “The cost is that we give them political education and we educate them on the true reasons for the drug laws. We have a wall of history where we do the political education with pictures and dates.”
Participants are educated on the roots of the War on Drugs, which began in 1971 under President Nixon, and how its impact on black and brown communities ultimately spurred action from the Black Panthers and the Young Lords.
“This group of activists saw that their communities were being flooded with drugs but there were no resources for people to be able to have the tools that they need,” Juan explains. “They realized that this was intentional, that this was by design….In order to keep a population oppressed, you keep them sick. And if you keep them sick, you keep them silent…They came up with their own strategy to counter that.”
As part of this strategy, The Young Lords took over Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx and instituted a holistic detox program in the early 1970s.
As Juan says, “They learned through an article that [an opiate user] in Hong Kong or Thailand, depending on who you ask, was receiving acupuncture and was able to get off opiates…so they learned how to do acupuncture.
That’s the origins of it – it started out of Lincoln Detox, out of activism against the injustice and the racist drug laws that affected our community… and as people came into detox off of the substances, they educated them on their rights to be treated as a human being and why they were in the condition that they were.”
OnPoint NYC’s holistic services works to follow this legacy and continue to educate for change. “Part of our political education is letting people know that we need to change the system and that the people affected by the drug laws are not criminals. If anything, they’re victims of an unjust system,” shares Juan.
Because of the program’s frequent community outreach, many Holistic Services participants are community members that may not otherwise visit OnPoint NYC or use drugs – and for them, this education and experience can open new perspectives.
“We educate them,” says Juan, “and then when they’re getting treatment, they’re sitting side by side with our participants who do use drugs and there’s no stigma attached. There’s no pointing of fingers, and we see ourselves as human beings as opposed to words like ‘addict’, ‘crackhead.’ So that’s an important factor in what we do as a component. We break down barriers, we break down stigmas with the use of holistic health and political education.”
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