Toban Shadlyn

OPIOIDS, CARE, ADDICTION 

An ongoing multi-year collaboration with public health researchers, people who use drugs, government officials, and community organizations to design healing and compassionate systems of care in the United States.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Opioid Crisis (oftentimes referred to as the Overdose Crisis) was and continues to be America’s deadliest public health emergency. Since the pandemic, drug overdose deaths continue to rise in record numbers across the United States.  

Beginning in 2019, I have been working in collaboration with many folks in Rhode Island, developing and implementing a portfolio of interventions, each with the intent of applying pressure on different parts of the care system to enact change. The goal of this work is to pull the system of care and addiction into a new future. 

Equitable Futures Studios

A mechanism for systems change in Rhode Island. A challenge as complex and interconnected as this requires collaborative efforts and therefore need to create the conditions and spaces to do so. In March 2021, with support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Center for Complexity (CfC) at RISD began a collaboration with the COBRE on Opioids and Overdose initiating a six-month process of design-led discovery organized around studios. The studios set out to create a coordinated, interdisciplinary effort, and a structure for collaborative redesign to the current challenges. 

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Overdose prevention sites (sometimes referred to as safe injection facilities) have been historically illegal to open and operate in the US. That was until recently. In 2021, Rhode Island became the first state to legalize this critical harm reduction strategy that saves lives.

However, the road to changing legislation was long and complex. One strategy that supported these changes to policy was the creation of a mock overdose prevention site.

A collaboration between the COBRE on Opioids and Overdose, RISD’s Center for Complexity, and RICARES, designed exhibitions that travelled aroud Rhode Island and Massachusette to build awareness and provoke conversation. As a vehicle for learning and engagement, these spaces invited policymakers, healthcare professionals, businesses, and local residents into an immersive experience - turning abstract ideas into tangible realities. 

Exhibtion presented at RICARES in downton Providence, pop up exhibition around Rhode Island, and the American Public Health Association Conference in Boston, MA.

mainstay RI is a small thinktank and advocacy group working to redesign the environments of care for people impacted by the overdose crisis. We conduct research, provide educational training, design interventions, and partner with local community organizations to support their work.

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In the Spring of 2022, the Center for Complexity taught a RISD interdisciplinary studio with graduate and undergraduate students from Interior Architure and Industrial Design.

The studio was designed around the July 7, 2021 legislation passing a two-year pilot program to prevent drug overdoses through the establishment of harm reduction centers in Rhode Island. The law and regulations set minimum criteria that a harm reduction center must operate within.

Between regulation and implementation, there lies a host of design decisions that span disciplines and scale. These will have a profound impact on the health and wellbeing of all who occupy the site. This was the starting point of our studio.

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