On Monday, we attend the House of Commons for the launch of this year’s HIV Prevention Innovation Fund where we unveiled ‘Promote’ – our new project which will be providing HIV support and health promotion for male sex workers in Bristol.
Our Engagement manager, Emma Wells, attended to deliver a short presentation about the key aims, approach and desired outcomes of our successful bid.
I am very proud and excited to announce that we have been awarded funding by Public Health England to develop a 12-month innovative intervention in partnership with Terrance Higgins Trust aiming to engage underserved Male Sex Workers and their clients with existing Sexual Health Services in Bristol
The new service will see us bringing together the experiences of BDP, our Prism service and Terrence Higgins Trust to provide 1-to-1 interventions, promote PrEP and increase access to HIV testing.
We’ll be bringing over 30 years of experience working in Bristol with underserved and hidden populations. This project will see us continue to build upon Prism’s existing good relationships and innovative outreach with our target MSM (men who have sex with men) communities.
I had a great day in London learning all about the projects being funded in 2017-2018, making new connections with other services and celebrating the success of past HIV Prevention Innovation Fund project.
On Friday we attended HIT Hot Topics, an annual conference held in Liverpool which features the latest harm reduction developments from across the world.
We at HIT believe that a conference focused on harm reduction is more important than ever given the current UK situation in terms of drug related deaths, novel psychoactive drugs, chemsex and a lack of political will to promote evidence-based approaches to these issues.
The conference featured 13 prominent speakers exploring a variety of topics – including drug-related deaths in the UK, novel psychoactive drugs, IPEDS, chemsex, service user involvement and the political landscape of drugs and alcohol.
We were particularly impressed by two separate talks which made us think how we could further develop services to improve engagement and support with our more difficult to engage clients, including people who sleep rough.
Sue McCutcheon, a nurse from Birmingham’s Homeless Primary Care Team presented a talk on the risks people face when living on the street. Talking about her street engagement role on the Homeless Task Force, she explored the challenges they’ve overcome whilst delivering health care to individuals with multiple needs.
Nanna Gotfredsen, the founder and director of Gadejuristen, The Danish Street Lawyers, presented an exciting talk around their legal outreach with homeless people in Copenhagen and the progressive provision of the world’s largest consumption room.
“It was a great day with lots of learning and some great networking, meeting new and old associates and learning of new research in the pipelines,” reviewed Jane, our Assertive Engagement Manager.
“We made some positive links with other agencies including Harm Reduction International and Gay Men’s Health Collective who we have invited to our Chemsex talk later this month. We came away armed with new contacts, information and a lease of positive motivation.”
Held as part of National ProBono Week, the event saw the launch of their new Annual Review which featured their partnership with BDP as an example of how the Law Clinic is supporting those that would not otherwise have access to legal advice.
In an age of austerity, reductions in Legal Aid means that it is often those who are most in need who now have least access to expert legal advice through other avenues. Maggie met staff and students including one who will soon be delivering our Law Clinic at BDP: “Her enthusiasm to learn about the barriers people with drug and alcohol problems face and to bring her knowledge and expertise to support their access to justice was inspiring.”
We are dedicated to providing pro-bono legal advice for those that most need it. Working with partners like Bristol Drugs Project also provides students with a deep appreciation of the issues facing our community’s most vulnerable people.
– John Peake, Law Clinic Director
Launched in the summer of 2016, their fortnightly Law Clinic drop-in at BDP has provided free legal advice to our service users who are struggling to gain access to the formal legal support they need to start taking back control of their lives.
I went to Citizens Advice for a personal matter and was signposted to the Law Clinic. Within two appointments, something I’d been getting nowhere with was resolved. In the first appointment, I started to see how the skills and professionalism I was benefitting from would be of huge benefit to our own clients
– Ed Holder, Support Worker at BDP
Over the past year, the Law Clinic has supported people whose problematic drug and alcohol use has meant they have faced restricted access to housing, public services and education, and also provided support around problems with benefits, debt, domestic violence, fragile family networks and criminal activity.
It provided a really amazing legal exchange about how the law could help get them on their feet. I now understand more deeply about ‘labels’ and that actually their problems are the same as many of our other clients – with the drugs just an added complication.
– Sanya Rajpal, Law Student
Read their new Annual Review to find out more about the Law Clinic at BDP.
The Law Clinic at BDP is currently welcoming and training their new student volunteers. Stay tuned to find out when the fortnightly drop-in re-opens at our Central Bristol Walk-In.
Last weekend Rising Voices, Bristol’s Recovery Choir, were invited to take part in a conference in at the University of Brighton, exploring and sharing ideas about how music can be used to support people around their addiction.
The day featured a variety of practical activities, academic sessions and performances – bringing together a diverse group of people together from all backgrounds, including academics, researchers, therapists, people in recovery, musicians, drug & alcohol practitioners and music therapists.
Rising Voices were invited to perform throughout the conference, including an exciting collaboration with fellow choir Cascade Creative Recovery. New Note Orchestra, Brighton’s very own recovery band, also attended to present their story and showcase their Strummer’s Guitar Group project.
As well performing, Rising Voice choir members were also invited to share their individual stories of how the choir has supported their recovery, taking part in a breakout session with keynote speaker Dr. Jörg Fachner, a leading researcher in music and addiction.
The thing that is most valuable to me about the choir is the chance to have a voice… to just be a human being with other humans, singing.
MUSIC DARE is a 3-year partnership project between academic centres across Europe. Now in its third and final year, the project will soon be launching an e-learning package of their findings. Stay tuned for more information.
This week we welcomed 14 new team Project Volunteers to BDP, who will be working alongside our Engagement Team in our Central Walk-In Centre, gaining front-line experience answering people’s questions and providing access into our services.
“They are a fantastic group – curious, open-minded, knowledgeable, friendly and keen. So we are very happy to be welcoming the new volunteers to BDP,” says Sophie, one of our Volunteer Managers.
Our Central Walk-In Centre and Needle Exchange are direct access services, open six days a week, which means anyone can come in with any kind of drug-related problem. Working in our Needle Exchange, our volunteers will also be joining our long history of tackling the spread of blood-borne viruses by providing people with free access to clean injecting equipment.
The new volunteers received five weeks of full training as part of their induction. “It’s a huge team effort,” explains Sophie. “The volunteers have said how useful and inspiring it was to meet people and learn from the expertise of people from all over the agency. We want to say a huge thank you to the staff and existing volunteers from across BDP who came in and ran a session or shared their experience with the new group.”
We caught up with a couple of new volunteers after their first day to find out what they took from their training and ask them how their first day had been.
“I really enjoyed getting to know other volunteers and becoming a close team,” reflected Lou. “I applied to volunteer because I wanted the chance to do what I can to help people in challenging situations. Since learning new skills, I’ve become more aware of how I interact and listen to people. If I can help an individual, even a small bit, then that is time well spent.
“The most memorable part of my first day volunteering was seeing first-hand the range of clients with varying needs that come in.”
“I enjoyed the hands-on approach to the training – no two days were the same”, said Sarah. “I am now much more confident. I have become really determined to a make a difference to people’s lives and am looking forward to learning from others and developing my own way of helping.
“If someone is interested in addiction, harm reduction and a service that really genuinely cares for its clients’ and staff’s wellbeing and health then they have to apply to volunteer at BDP.” – Sarah.
“Go for it!” agreed Lou.
If you want to find out when we’re next recruiting, sign-up to receive our volunteer email notifications.
Peerfest is an annual celebration of the importance, power and diversity of peer support – bringing peers together, from across Bristol and the UK, to share skills and experiences through talks and workshops.
We hosted a Bristol ROADS stall alongside DHI Bristol, bringing our knowledge of how alcohol and drug services can work with and utilise peers to further improve treatment services and people’s individual journeys in recovery.
The day was devoted to ideas and approaches to engaging people who struggle to access supportive services. We were there to talk about our Prism engagement service and share ideas about engaging with LGBT+ communities.
Our talk explored our experience at recent Bristol Pride festivals where we used surveys as positive engagement tools, rather than just for research. We also discussed the challenges involved with engaging with a diverse community – where we see people accessing support from multiple demographics and seeking support for a range of drugs and alcohol.
