August 2012 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 19
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Profile |
David Liddell
in terms of dealing with outbreaks and epidemics – these outbreaks
will occur and we need to be ready for them. The challenge is to
revisit your plans on a regular basis and make sure you have the
people there who can be pulled in to assist – it’s about how you get
the information out to those who need it.’
One salutary lesson, however, was how problematic it can be
attempting to do that via the mainstream media. ‘You only need to
compare the level of coverage of the recent Legionnaires’ disease
outbreak with the miniscule coverage of the anthrax outbreak. If
they’re not interested then we need to rely on the user networks
to get the information out.’
The forum’s vision is to work towards a society where
everyone can fulfil their potential, with the needs of
people affected by drug use met ‘effectively and with
empathy, compassion and respect’, and a key aspect has
always been service user involvement. ‘Since the ’90s we’ve
supported the first user involvement groups,’ he says. ‘That’s
become much more mainstream now, whereas people used
to say, “Why on earth would you do that?” A key part is to
provide feedback in a systematic way to the people running
the services – using our volunteers to undertake peer
research has been a terrific model, so
there’s a huge potential for
consistently
delivering that
feedback.
It’s about a more open approach to recognising that services are never perfect and
can always improve. In Scotland, with a population of 5m, it’s possible to do that
– you can have a model that operates across the country.’
Another vital aspect is the benefit for the volunteers in terms of the skills and
experience they gain, he points out, with most moving on to education, training
and employment. SDF’s award-winning addiction worker training project has been
running since 2004, providing paid-for placements in services and a qualification
in social care at the end. ‘About 15 people a year do it, and around 80 per cent
move into paid employment. Even in the recession we’re managing to keep up
that level of movement into paid work, but this is a real issue – you have people
with 15-20 years of unemployment, and some have never worked at all, so we
really need to be developing these routes into meaningful employment and
voluntary opportunities. It’s a huge challenge.’
This means that housing, welfare reform and family support underpin a good
deal of SDF’s work, he stresses. ‘Poverty and deprivation are so crucial to the scale
of the drug problem we’ve got, and if we want to reduce the numbers of young
people coming into problem drug use then we need to really address the
problems of the poorest communities.’
In terms of the recovery agenda, that means being realistic about what can be
achieved, he states, while continuing to develop ‘real and meaningful’ opportunities
to help people’s recovery. ‘There’s this notion that drug policy can make an impact in
itself, but it has to be seen in the context of poverty and deprivation.’
The SDF has consistently argued that the roots of Scotland’s drug problems lie
in poverty – are there still people who don’t believe, or acknowledge, that? ‘You do
still get people who say that drugs are drivers of poverty and deprivation, rather
than the other way around, just as you get people who say substitute prescribing
is the problem rather than a response to a problem. You only need to consider
how challenging recovery is to people who are constantly being pushed around
and harried over benefits issues and so on.’
He’s also repeatedly called for more services to be targeted towards the
needs of older drug users, and their problems with isolation and chronic
health conditions. Does he feel more is being done to address their
needs, or are they still a comparatively neglected population? ‘Again,
this is one of the challenges for the recovery agenda,’ he says.
‘From the work we’ve done it’s clear that there’s an increasing
number of older drug users across the whole of Western
Europe – mostly males living on their own, many of them
still on substitute medication but with failing physical
and mental health.’ For some, he says, there ‘really is
an ambivalence about whether they continue living’
or not.
‘In terms of services, they’re perhaps not
always regarded as a priority because they’re not
seen as causing too many difficulties for wider
society, but there is a huge need to engage
with them and improve their quality of life.
There are some very good international
models – particularly in Germany –
which involve things like shared
accommodation and mutual support,
but obviously these need to be very
well resourced. The risk in the current
climate is that it’s a population that
will just be forgotten about.’ DDN
‘There’s this notion that drug policy can make
an impact in itself, but it has to be seen in the
context of poverty and deprivation.’
David Liddell