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This case study examines unique overdose risks and prevention strategies for women who have used heroin during pregnancy in New York City. The overdose crisis has resulted in increased efforts to implement drug user health services; yet, pregnant and parenting women who use drugs continue to be left behind. Three women who currently use heroin and had experienced at least one pregnancy during their heroin use history were interviewed using semi-structured qualitative interviews. Their experiences documented in this case study illustrate several gender-specific considerations when responding to the overdose crisis in New York City. Overwhelmingly, barriers to healthcare and overdose prevention were correlated with perceived stigma and the fear of or actual loss of child custody. Compassionate, gender-responsive interventions remain largely absent in policy and practice, especially for pregnant women. The shared experiences highlighted in this case study should be used to develop improved drug user health policies and practices as well as increase overall advocacy efforts for women of reproductive age who use drugs.

This chapter presents a broad introduction to women’s varied interactions with drugs and drug markets. It provides a brief overview of the international framework of drug control and the ways in which drug policy enforcement differently impacts women and men. It highlights the negative and disproportionate impacts on women of criminalisation-based approaches and how drug policy serves to reinforce existing problems of structural discrimination. This provides context for the contributions to this edited collection, which are summarised in the introduction. The book situates drug policy reform as a crucial and underlooked feminist issue.

This literature review aims to ascertain the outcomes and perspectives of community-based compassion-focused therapy (CFT) for adults with intellectual disabilities.

A comprehensive search of five databases was conducted systematically, with one additional study identified manually, yielding eight relevant studies. Methodological quality was appraised using two tools to account for heterogeneity in study designs.

Two studies conducted a CFT-derived task while six studies conducted full CFT interventions, of which two delivered group interventions. Qualitative findings were favourable towards CFT, though some quantitative outcomes were inconsistent across the literature and with qualitative results. It is concluded that CFT is perceived as valuable and appears to produce positive outcomes for adults with intellectual disabilities. However, larger, randomised control trials are required to establish CFT as an efficacious, evidence-based intervention.

This review provides insight into the outcomes and perspectives of CFT for individuals with an intellectual disability which has not been explicitly explored prior. Therefore, a holistic and specific examination of community-based CFT for individuals with intellectual disabilities is introduced to the literature.