Working in Harm Reduction
Posts and Roles
There are five different kinds of post within harm reduction, each with a different level of responsibility. These are
- Harm Reduction Volunteers
- Assistant/Trainee Harm Reduction Worker
- Harm Reduction Worker
- Senior Harm Reduction Worker
- Senior Practitioner
What do Harm Reduction Workers do?
The Harm Reduction team does what it says on the can - working closely with people who using or may continue to use drugs. Doing this effectively and well is what makes a good Harm Reduction worker.
We aim to give our service users the latest fact-based information about the drugs they're using and how they take them and to offer the best help we can and which the service user will accept.
Where people are not yet ready to give up, the Harm Reduction worker will help them to use drugs in the least harmful way. If the service user is successful in reduing the risk of drug use to themselves, this is likely to result in benefits for the community such as
- reduced hospital admissions
- reduced number of deaths of people through overdose and infection
- a reduction in discarded injecting equipment in parks and recreation grounds
Extending the role
Training
Harm Reduction workers contribute to KCA's Training Curriculum by providing specialist training sessions such as
- Working with Injectors
- Introduction to Harm Reduction
- Overdose Prevention and Management
Research
The Team also work individually and under the guidance of Neil Hunt, KCA's Director of Research, to carry out research on topics such as:
- HIV and injecting behaviour;
- Surveys of femoral injecting prevalence; and
- How to prevent people being initiated into injecting.
They are also 'collaborators' with the Health Protection Agency in a long term HIV/Hepatitis prevalance survey (the SPIT survey)
The team is currently trialling the provision of 5 to 50 minute relaxation therapy for drop in service users to assess its role as a 'gateway' therapy to services for any drug user or significant other.