I debuted these principles in my axe-con 2025 talk, It is designed to break your heart: Cultivating a harm reduction mindset as an accessibility practitioner. They are adapted from The National Harm Reduction Coalition’s original eight principles.
My adapted principles reflect philosophical and behavioral changes I’ve been cultivating. This is done to try and offset, and defend against systemic trauma and its resultant depression, burnout, and other negative experiences you can incur when doing digital accessibility work.
If you have the time, I’d advise reading the original eight principles. I also recommend watching or reading the talk. I say this not in a self-promotional way, but instead that there is a lot of context that will be helpful in understanding:
- How these adapted principles came to be, and also
- The larger mindset shifts and practices that led to their creation.
The principles
There are eight principles in total. They are delivered in the context of how to approach evaluating a team’s efforts, and are:
Accepting ableism and minimizing it
Accepting, for better or worse, that ableism is a part of our world and choosing to work to minimize its harmful effects, rather than simply ignoring or condemning it.
The original principle this is derived from is: “Accepts, for better or worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them.”
Provisioning of resources is non-judgemental
Calling for the non-judgemental provision of services and resources for people who create access barriers within the disciplines in which they work, in order to assist them in reducing harm.
The original principle this is derived from is: “Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people who use drugs and the communities in which they live in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.”
Do not minimize or ignore real harm
Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger that can be created by inaccessible experiences.
The original principle this is derived from is: “Does not attempt to minimize or ignore the real and tragic harm and danger that can be associated with illicit drug use.”
Some barriers are worse than others
Understands that how access barriers are created is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a range of severities from life-endangering to annoying, and acknowledges that some barriers are clearly worse than others.
The original principle this is derived from is: “Understands drug use as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from severe use to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of using drugs are clearly safer than others.”
Social inequalities affect vulnerability
Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination, and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to, and capacity for effectively dealing with creating inaccessible experiences.
The original principle this is derived from is: “Recognizes that the realities of poverty, class, racism, social isolation, past trauma, sex-based discrimination, and other social inequalities affect both people’s vulnerability to and capacity for effectively dealing with drug-related harm.”
Improvement of quality is success
Establishes quality of individual and team life and well-being—not necessarily cessation of all current workflows—as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
The original principle this is derived from is: “Establishes quality of individual and community life and well-being—not necessarily cessation of all drug use—as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.”
Empowering people also helps their peers
Affirms people who create access barriers themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their efforts, and seeks to empower them to share information and support each other in creating and using remediation strategies that are effective for their daily workflows.
The original principle this is derived from is: “Affirms people who use drugs themselves as the primary agents of reducing the harms of their drug use and seeks to empower people who use drugs to share information and support each other in strategies which meet their actual conditions of use.”
Ensure that disabled people have a voice in change
Ensures that people who are affected by access barriers, and those who have been affected by your organization’s access barriers, have a real voice in the creation of features and services designed to serve them.
The original principle this is derived from is: “Ensures that people who use drugs and those with a history of drug use routinely have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies designed to serve them.”
Reframe
My talk digs deeper into into the parallels between the adapted and original principles, as well as the similarities between digital accessibility and harm reduction work.
This is in the service of attempting to reframe our efforts. By this, I mean that we are miscategorized participants in imperfect, trauma-generating systems.
The change in perspective I am advocating for also compels changes in behavior in order to not only survive, but also flourish as digital accessibility practitioners. The adapted principles are integral to making this effort successful.