“Peer” Stigma Within the Industry

When I began, we were Peers, we were Peer Workers. And some of the stigma kind of attached
to that for me came when I was looking for other work. So when I would apply for jobs and they
would see peer and harm reduction on my resume, I was kind of received in a different way.
After a while I started realizing that this was happening and so I actually altered my resume to
just say Outreach Worker, Harm Reduction Outreach Worker. And that automatically, I was
getting more phone calls back, I was getting interviews, I was getting hired for all kinds of
different jobs. So it was really interesting how that one word, people could look at and be like,
“Oh, that’s what she does.”