Sasha has dedicated her career to delivering innovative, cross-sector approaches to public health and education, with a habit of strategically disrupting obstacles to health equity.

Sasha Simon Consulting was founded in 2021 to provide trainings, technical assistance and consulting services to youth-serving professionals transitioning away from punitive, abstinence-based drug education and policies and towards inclusive, restorative, and health-based structures that support the whole child and their community.

Founder & Principal Consultant, Sasha Simon, MPH, works and speaks extensively on issues related to teens and drug use, sexuality and health, adultism, and BIPOC mental health — building intergenerational coalitions and collaborative networks to empower youth as advocates to challenge political issues that directly impact them.

More About Me

  • One of the most influential aspects of my identity is that I am the child of immigrants.

    I was fortunate to be raised by parents who encouraged me to boldly take risks. After all, they had already taken the ultimate risk to leave mostly everything and everyone they know in Antigua & Barbuda to give my brother and me experiences and opportunities our ancestors only dreamed of.

    This outlook helped me develop a mindset that emboldened me to honor my personal and professional passions – including founding a college-preparatory non-profit for other first-gen students in the Bronx, conducting independent research on the legacy of anti-gay laws in the Caribbean, and even striking out on my own to found my own small business.

    As a Black, queer, first-gen woman often finding myself in the status of an “outsider”, I’ve been imbued with a spirit of fighting for the underdog, which found me taking on challenges to elevate the health and fulfillment of BIPOC youth and communities. This is most evident in my commitment to the advancement of public health, a field where data lays out plainly which groups we provide the necessary resources for a high quality of life, and those we systematically do not.

    After receiving my B.A. in 2010 at the University of Texas at Austin, double majoring in Psychology and African & African Diaspora Studies, I moved to New York to study Public Health at Columbia University.

    Living in a leading state in public health policy, I led and engaged several progressive health and education initiatives, most notably leading the development and evaluation of Safety First: Real Drug Education for Teens — the nation’s first harm reduction-based drug education curriculum for high schools.

    Safety First was developed and evaluated under my tenure at the Drug Policy Alliance — the nation’s leading organization working to end the war on drugs and repair its harms — and as of 2023, the curriculum now has a home at Stanford School of Medicine’s REACH Lab.

    The most rewarding job I’ve had to date? Being a 10th grade high school teacher.

    For more info about my professional experience, view my CV.

    — Sasha

    • Adolescent Health

    • Adultism

    • BIPOC Mental Health

    • Community-Led Program Development

    • Curriculum Development

    • Harm Reduction-Based Drug Education

    • Health Education

    • Participatory Action Research

    • Popular Education

    • Social Determinants of Health + Intersectional Analysis

    • Workforce Development + Training

    • Advisory + Governing Board Service

    • Coalition Building + Community Engagement

    • Guest Lecturing

    • Instructional Design + Curriculum Development

    • Keynote Speaking

    • Media Engagement

    • Non-Profit Program Development

    • Policy Analysis + Research

    • Project Management

    • Workshop Development + Facilitation

    • Writing + Communications