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23 March 2009 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 13
Voices for choices |
Service user conference 2009
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Firstly, can I thank all of you who attended and
contributed to this year’s
DDN
/Alliance
Voices For
Choices
national service user conference in
Birmingham. It was fantastic to see the event filled to
capacity (again), and the overall energy and levels of
discussion, debate and general engagement were
truly inspiring.
I felt extremely proud and privileged to be associated with such a positive
advertisement for effective, targeted, proactive user involvement, and I know our friends
and masters at the NTA, Department of Health and Home Office were equally impressed
with both the turnout and highly articulated willingness of so many people to reflect on
the real impact that drug treatment is having on their lives.
We all have a collective duty to ensure that national drug strategy moves beyond being
a just a daunting set of increased (and often contradictory) targets and demands that
restrict creativity in an already over-burdened workforce, but instead effectively supports
an individual’s recovery and reintegration by providing ‘more personalised approaches to
treatment services which have the flexibility to respond to individual circumstances’. And
one way to do this is to directly inform the relevant government departments of the
positive and negative effects that local drug treatment provision is having on the lives of
the people it is intended to serve – namely, users and carers.
We hope we managed to start this process in January by using the conference as a
means to gather the views and experiences of service users (and again, thank you all for
your time and contribution), but this needs to be an ongoing process, and we intend to
make this a key part of the Alliance’s role over the coming years.
We’re in a unique position in that we have a conference, internet forum, local peer-led
projects, and continually expanding training courses that specifically target and engage
with service users, and we need to galvanise these opportunities for consultation and
establish a true picture of drug treatment in the UK, and make it our duty to keep
government informed of what is – and perhaps more importantly, isn’t – working.
This is why it was so important to use the conference to give a platform to exciting
new initiatives that support controlled drinking, the prescribing of injectables and user
and carer administered naloxone pilots, as these are exactly the types of ‘new approaches
to treatment’ that the new drug strategy proclaims to support. Although given the
apparent contempt and disregard the current government appears to have for the
Advisory Council of the Misuse of Drugs’ guidance and recommendations (cannabis and
ecstasy reclassification anyone?), I do understand if there’s a collective snort of reader
cynicism out there.
But we have to keep pushing forward, and with the third National Service User
Conference already being planned, and a series of nine Alliance/
DDN
regional roadshows
awaiting confirmation from the Department of Health, we can really cement the user and
carer voice in effective strategic consultation.
Thanks again folks. We couldn’t do it without you.
Daren Garratt is executive director of the Alliance
Notes from the Alliance
Don’t stop now
We’re in a unique position
now to galvanise consultation
– let’s keep pushing forward,
says
Daren Garratt
more and more women not accessing the treatment they need.
Many respondents thought the reforms would lead to service
users being more stigmatised and marginalised, foster
resentment towards services and that the requirement to declare
drug use would ‘promote fear and mistrust at job centres’. ‘The
focus seems to be on penalising people, not helping them,’ said
one. Others were worried about the impact of the reforms during
a recession. ‘It’s sending the wrong message at the wrong time,’
said another. ‘Where’s the jobs?’
People spoke of how having to be ‘actively seeking work’
added to the pressures they faced in trying to address the
problems of their addiction, especially if they lived in an area
where there were few employment opportunities, and how
agencies failed to understand the psychological impact of re-
entering the job market after a long period. ‘Stepping out of the
comfort zone’ was very unnerving, said one respondent, and
there were fears expressed that the added pressures could lead
to more relapses, as well as around the training and
competencies of the government’s new JobCentre Plus co-
ordinators (
DDN
, 26 January, page 4) and how well they would be
able to understand the problems facing drug users.
One service user representative expressed doubts that
services would be able to cope with the influx of people required
to enter treatment, and another respondent thought it would lead
to ‘unmotivated staff herding dissatisfied punters.’
Many respondents were unaware of the proposed changes –
they’d either heard nothing, or were confused by what they had
heard. But, although a minority, a number of service users
thought the proposed new regime a good idea, provided it was
implemented thoughtfully and effectively. ‘With a clean head I sort
of agree’ with the proposals, said one. ‘The sooner it comes in
the better,’ commented another. ‘This will get everyone off their
arses,’ said a third.
The majority of criticism, however, was reserved for the
potential impact on crime levels, with many service users feeling
that withdrawal of benefits would inevitably lead to an increase in
acquisitive crime, as people unable to stop using would fund their
use through illegal means. ‘By taking people off sickness benefit
they will have no other choice but to commit crimes,’ said one. ‘If
someone isn’t ready for treatment, they shouldn’t be forced into
it,’ commented another. ‘It could send the crime rate sky high if
people lose their benefits.’
And many saw the proposals as symptomatic of attitudes to
drug users as a whole. ‘We need to consider how society views
drug users,’ one delegate commented. ‘They want them back in
employment, as long as it’s not them employing.’