Caty Simon
Development Director, Narrative Development Director, Leadership Team Member, Whose Center Is It Anyway, NC Survivors Union, National Survivors Union
Caty Simon has spent more than 20 years in the low-income rights, psychiatric survivors’ rights, sex workers’ rights, and drug users union movements. She is a leadership team member of and a sex worker liaison for the National Survivors Union (NSU), the United States national drug users union. Simon is also a founding co-organizer and Development Director of Whose Corner Is It Anyway, a Western MA harm reduction, mutual aid, and organizing group by and for low-income, street, and survival sex workers who use opioids and/or stimulants and/or experience housing insecurity. She is the Narrative Development Director at NC Survivors Union, a project reducing stigma and disrupting stereotypes against people who use drugs through collaborative autobiographical story development and stakeholder training. She is the first author of a commentary in the International Journal of Drug Policy on union members’ experiences as drug user organizers doing community-driven research (CDR) and an editorial in a health justice and overdose crisis supplemental issue of the American Journal of Public Health, “The methadone manifesto: treatment experiences and policy recommendations from methadone patient activists.”
Financial Disclosure: Speaker does not have any financial relationships to disclose.
Brit Vargas-Estrella, B.A.
Director of Operations, OnPoint NYC
Brittney Vargas-Estrella a proud Bronxite and Boricua with a passion for providing services to historically excluded populations including individuals who use drugs, engage in sex work, are unhoused, and/or have justice-system involvement. As the Director of Operations at OnPoint NYC, the largest harm reduction organization in the East Coast, they are committed to managing and optimizing the organization's operational infrastructure to support programmatic growth and expansion.
Financial Disclosure: Speaker does not have any financial relationships to disclose.
George Langan, MSN, R.N.
Registered Nurse, ASHwell
George has been a registered nurse for 34 years. He received his ADN and BSN degree from Eastern New Mexico University and his Master of Nursing from West Texas A and M University. In the hospital setting, he has worked in HIV acute and extended care, Newborn Nursery, Medical/ Surgical, and Critical Care, as well as staff development and in-house clinical education. In the academic setting, George has taught for 7 years in both ADN and BSN nursing students. In 2015, George started volunteering in sexual health clinics in the Austin area starting with Austin PrEP Access, the KIND Clinic, the Center for Health Empowerment, and the ASHwell Clinic. He has also worked as a wound care nurse with Austin Harm Reduction Coalition from 2016-2018. In 2019, George became a full-time team member at Austin Sexual Health and Wellness Clinic. George is grateful to help pay forward the same services that helped care for him as a young gay man growing up in New Mexico, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay area.
Noor Z.K.
Director, Sex Workers Educating & Empowering Texans
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