Senior Harm Reduction Specialist
Multnomah County Health Department
Portland, Oregon
Courtney Kenney (she/her) is the Sr Harm Reduction Specialist at the Multnomah County Health Department based in Portland, Oregon. She is the Project Director for a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) funded intiative to improve MOUD access for clients in custody and after release in collaboration with the health department's syringe service program (SSP). Courtney also leads projects that include harm reduction strategic planning and policy, wound care access, housing navigation, reducing heat risks for people who use drugs, improving access for pregnant PWUD, and the SSP encampment outreach program.
Courtney began her work in harm reduction in Boston 10 years ago when she helped to launch SPOT, a drop-in sedation monitoring program for people at risk of overdose. As the Health Equity and Policy Manager at Oregon's Primary Care Association, she improved Medicaid data and payment for housing, transportation, and food insecurity and joined statewide efforts for alternative payment, evaluating COVID-19 outcomes by race and ethnicity, community health worker expansion, and increasing funding for substance use treatment and behavioral health. As the Prevention Manager at Cascade AIDS Project, Courtney led HIV/STI testing expansion across three counties with projects tailored to people who use drugs, sex workers, and migrant seasonal farmworker camps.
Courtney is passionate about policy reform that centers people who use drugs and about increasing accountability across care settings for the wellbeing of people who have (intentionally) been criminalized and silenced. She likes to talk about using less naloxone and to interrupt misinformation about the drug supply.
Disclosure information not submitted.
LAI Buprenorphine in Criminal Justice Settings: Strategies and Tools for Implementation
Sunday, April 26, 2026
10:15 AM - 11:30 AM PT
