From rugby playing OAPs to raving students to leather fetishists, BDP staff wrapped up another busy festival season by sampling a range of eclectic events across Bristol in one weekend – helping to raise awareness of our open and accessible services, no matter who you are.
Celebrating Age Festival
Kath, our Community Service Manager, attended the Celebrating Age Festival at the City Hall. Hosted by Age UK Bristol, this annual festival is a great opportunity for older people to find out about the many activities that Bristol can offer. Highlights of the festival this year included Tai Chi and Walking Rugby on College Green.
As well as promoting our dedicated services for older people, Kath spent the day collecting lots of information to share with our 50+ service users, looking at ways people can reduce isolation and maintain an independent lifestyle.
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From dance to dub and house to hip-hop, Tokyo World has become a staple in our festival calendar over the past few years. Taking place over two days in Eastville Park, Tokyo World sees 20,000 people from Bristol and beyond join together for an exciting weekend of music.
Workers from across BDP jumped at the chance to don their best festival gear and provide the masses with harm reduction advice for all sorts of club drugs and psychoactives. One of our team also managed to meet the stars backstage to help spread our harm reduction message…
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UK Leather Pride
Welcoming leather fetishists from across the country, UK Leather Pride is a focal point for Bristol’s gay men’s leather community, with specialist events and activities including parties, socials, retail opportunities, workshops and art exhibitions.
Our Prism team joined in the fun at the Lakota nightclub, enjoying the wonderful outfits on show whilst promoting our dedicated LGBT+ service.
“It’s great to see so much positive engagement work happening in one weekend,” said Emma Wells, our Engagement Manager. “The festival season is always a busy time for us as it’s a great opportunity to provide harm reduction advice and promote our services. We would like to say a big thank you to all the workers that have been involved in planning or attending events this year. Looking forward to next year already!”
Thanks to everyone who visited us throughout this year’s summer festival season. Stay tuned for more information about events we’ll be involved with this Autumn and Winter.
In response to alerts about the synthetic opioid fentanyl being mixed with heroin supplies, and it’s continued widespread media coverage, BDP has completed some localised testing for fentanyl to establish the current picture in Bristol.
By working alongside fifty people from across Bristol who are currently using heroin, we found that zero of the fifty tests proved positive for fentanyl. While this does not rule out the possibility that fentanyl may have previously been mixed into a heroin supply in Bristol, or may be in the future, we are able to report that this is not the case right now.
We would like to thank the fifty BDP service users who agreed to take part in our fentanyl tests, allowing us to give clear messages about the current risks, grounded in evidence.
CEO Maggie Telfer said, “People who use heroin run the risk of an overdose every day. We always try to get evidence of elevated risks rather than give warnings about ‘strong batches’ or ‘contaminated supply’, or in this case ‘fentanyl’, as there is a real risk of ‘crying wolf’. If there is evidence of an increased local risk we need people to really hear it and take the greatest care.”
We would also like to thank BDP staff for their continuous hard work in promoting ‘health-positive’ relationships with our service users, allowing for testing like this to be possible.
BDP continues to provide free training and supply of Naloxone (which reverses opioid overdose) at large scale, distributing 1093 doses between April 2016 and March 2017. During this time 155 people returned for a new supply having potentially used that Naloxone to help save a life.
To find out more about Naloxone, ask to speak to someone in our Walk-In Centres.
We want to say a big thank you to everyone who took part in this year’s Recovery Festival – whether you came along with friends, helped behind-the-scenes on the day, or took part in the programme of entertainment and activities.
The Recovery Festival celebrates the journeys and achievements of those who don’t often get the opportunity to shout about how far they have come. Bringing People together for the festival is an opportunity for those in recovery to do just that, inspiring others to start their own journey in the process.
– Paul Moores, The Recovery Festival
The Recovery Festival is a free annual event packed with live entertainment, activities and guest speakers to help celebrate and showcase the achievements and talents of people in recovery from across the South West. This year’s festival was held on September 1st, kick-starting Recovery Month, at the new site of St Agnes Park and St Agnes Church.
This year the Recovery Festival steps out in a new direction, in a new community location, and provides Bristol with another unique, ground-breaking event.
– Emmie Davies, The Recovery Festival
Highlights of this year’s festival included the return of BDP’s drama group and Rising Voices, Bristol’s Recovery Choir. Activities included yoga in the park, holistic therapies and a circus workshop provided by Circomedia. The Mutual Aid taster tent allowed people to try a variety of support available in the community, while DHI Peers provided fun art and crafts for the whole family.
I stopped drinking about 9 months ago and one of the things that came up was this huge emotional void. Singing with the recovery choir has helped me fill this.
– Choir member, Rising Voice
This year’s expansive film offerings included screenings from Digital Witness and Golden Key. It also marked the first year that Bristol hosted the touring Recovery Street Film Festival – screening shortlisted films made by people in recovery from across the UK.
The Recovery Festival is organised by a group of individuals from the recovery community, peer-led communities and local alcohol and drug treatment service providers.
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As you will have noticed, we have recently moved to our brand new website. This means that some of our old news items won’t have made the transition over to the new website.
But don’t worry, we will be uploading highlights of past news over to this new and improved website over the next few weeks. In the mean time, you can find out more about the work we do over at our history page.
Teenagers from schools in Bristol have been spending their summer holiday fundraising for BDP as part of the voluntary National Citizen Service social development programme for 15 to 17 year olds.
Through the NCS summer programme, children in secondary education are invited to take part in ‘social action’, working in a team with other young people to devise a community project based on a local issue they feel passionate about.
We have been fortunate to be chosen for several fundraising projects across the summer. Earlier this summer, a group of teenagers began raising funds for our Youth Groups which support children affected by family members use of alcohol or other drugs. Through a series of cake sales at The Galleries and online fundraising, the team raised over £500.
Money is of course always important to us, as our work supporting children and young people whose Mum’s, Dad’s or siblings’ drug or alcohol use is problematic is 100% charitably funded year on year and the money raised will help to keep our Youth Groups for 5-10 year olds and 11- 16 year olds running.
However, what is more valuable for BDP is the interest that the NCS team showed in this important issue. If you are a young person in this situation then it is often a very lonely place to be, where you are unlikely to talk about it because of concerns about what might happen to your family; and where you don’t do the usual things like inviting friends to your home. Our Youth Groups create a safe & fun space away from those family pressures, where young people with a shared experience don’t have to conceal or pretend all is well at home and can have some enjoyable time together.
I have no doubt that this group of young people’s involvement in highlighting this issue will make life easier for some young people whose family members are struggling with drugs or alcohol.
As part of International Overdose Awareness Day, we’re spreading our ‘Dozing or Overdosing?’ campaign throughout Bristol, helping people to spot opioid overdoses (most commonly heroin) and encouraging people to feel more confident in the event of an emergency.
The campaign continues to highlight the wider availability of Naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses.
At BDP, we are amongst the top three areas in England supplying Naloxone and we have been continuing to roll out training of this life-saving medication.
We would like to say another big thank you to our staff who have been going above-and-beyond the call of duty, attending over 15 overdoses and administering Naloxone.
If you are at risk of overdose, or you know someone who is, get in contact to receive your free Naloxone kit and training.
