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What we do

 

Scottish Drugs Forum works in partnership with others to:

• assist in the development of a comprehensive range of services for problematic drug users in Scotland
• provide a link between those in need of services, service providers and policy makers
• provide a forum for developing and promoting common responses to issues of concern
• improve the quality of all responses to drug use in Scotland
• collect, analyse and disseminate information of relevance to those concerned with drug issues

We do this through:

• Policy development
• Involving users and carers
• Engaging communities affected by drug use
• Promoting access to education, training and jobs
• Research, consultancy and service reviews
• Training and capacity building
• Conferences, seminars and briefings
• Information and publications

Policy development

Scottish Drugs Forum has an influential role in developing Scottish drug policy.

We work closely with key players at all levels in the field including politicians, policy-makers and practitioners in the health, criminal justice, social work, public policy and academic sectors, communities affected by drug use and problem drug users.

SDF networks across a vast spectrum of organisations in Scotland, the UK and Europe in order to access and assess information on best practice for reducing drugs harm and develop consensus on how best to respond to areas of concern.

This is achieved through:

• membership of organisations such as local Drug and Alcohol Partnerships
• liaison with MSPs, civil servants and all political parties
• attendance, participation and organisation of conferences, seminars and working groups
• engaging and empowering drug users and communities affected by drug use
• regular briefings and consultations with our wide membership base

SDF is a member of: 

• Scottish Government National Forum on Drug-related Deaths
• Scottish Government National Suicide Prevention Strategy Review Group 
• Scottish Government Hepatitis C National Advisory Group, Needle Exchange Guidelines Development Group, Hepatitis C Education, Training and Awareness-Raising Network
• Scottish Government Substance Misuse and Homelessness Working Group and Recommendations Sub-Group
• Scottish Government Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisations (SCIO) Working Group
• Scottish Training on Drugs and Alcohol (STRADA) Project Advisory Board
• Correlation - the European network aiming to increase access to health services and marginalised social groups
• European Civil Society Forum on Drugs
• International Drug Policy Consortium
• Alcohol and Drug Partnerships
• Greater Glasgow and Clyde Hepatitis C Prevention Network
• Greater Glasgow and Clyde Preventing Risk of Overdose in the Vulnerable Group (PROVE)
• Glasgow Naloxone Pilot Steering and Evaluation Groups
• Glasgow City Drugs and Alcohol Planning and Implementation Group’s Communities, Community Planning and Employment, Education and Training sub-groups
• Lothian Drug and Alcohol Strategy Programme Board
• Edinburgh and Lothian Drug and Alcohol Action Team Officers Group
• Edinburgh and Lothian Naloxone Pilot Steering Group
• Edinburgh and Lothian Agency Managers Group
• Fife Alcohol and Drug Partnership Joint Commissioning Group
• Fife Alcohol and Drug Partnership Local Strategy Group
• Fife Voluntary Sector Managers' Group
• Lanarkshire Voluntary Sector Network
• North Lanarkshire Partnership Board
• Joint Services Management Group (Alcohol and Drug Services) South Lanarkshire
• Dumfries and Galloway Naloxone Working Group
• Perth and Kinross Drug and Alcohol Forum
• Perth and Kinross Substance Misuse Strategy Implementation Group
• Perth and Kinross Voluntary Sector Drug and Alcohol Strategic Reference Group
• South West Glasgow Addictions Forum
• Tayside Drug Related Deaths Group

SDF chairs:

• Greater Glasgow and Clyde Voluntary Sector Drug and Alcohol Agencies (co-Chair)
• National Forum on Drug-related Deaths Service User Forum
• Perth and Kinross Drug and Alcohol Forum's Drug-related Deaths, Service User and Carer sub-groups

SDF Director David Liddell is Joint Secretary to the Scottish Parliament's Cross-Party Group on Alcohol and Drug Misuse. He sits on the UK Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) and is a member of the Independent Enquiry into Maximising the Recovery from Dependent Drug Use in Scotland.

SDF has observer status on the Scottish Association of Drug and Alcohol Agencies (SADAAT) and advises and/or supports a range of working groups and forums on drug-related issues including:

• Coalition of Alcohol and Drugs Agencies in Lothian (CDAAL)
• Greater Glasgow and Clyde Service User Involvement Partnership (SUIP) Steering Group
• National Forum on Drug-related Deaths Service User Forum
• Scottish Needle Exchange Workers' Forum
  

Our Regional Team assists our policy development function through:

• regular liaison with drug services
• linking into all relevant local planning structures
• supporting practitioner groups
• assisting the development of services for hard to reach groups
• representing SDF's range of interests within Alcohol and Drug Partnership areas

Contact: David Liddell, SDF Director tel 0141 221 1175 Dave@sdf.org.uk

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Involving users and carers

Giving drug users a say in the planning and delivery of services to improve existing and future treatment and rehabilitation is a growing area of activity among service providers.

SDF has developed a distinctive model of user involvement (UI) which gives users a voice in the development of services and at the same time improves their confidence and skills in a wide variety of ways.

SDF manages User Involvement projects in Dumfries and Galloway and Edinburgh. SDF also co-manages, along with Alcohol Focus Scotland, a service user model for the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Service User Involvement Partnership.

UI groups undertake a variety of work including:

• identifying the views of service users, (peer research and service evaluation)
• representing the views of service users (planning forums, advisory groups, and media work)
• participation at conferences/seminars (participant or facilitator)
• training (peer education, drug worker training, emergency first aid)
• development and dissemination of drug awareness material (drug prevention and harm reduction material)

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Engaging communities affected by drug use

This area of work aims to re-build communities worst affected by drug use through assisting local people to take an active role in reducing drugs harm in their own neighbourhoods.

SdF's objectives here are to enable local communities to do this by equipping them to take their place alongside, or make their voices heard by, key agencies – such as the police, education, youth work and specialist drug services – in the community planning process. In this way cash and resources can be directed to where local people feel they are most needed.

This is a challenging and long-term area of work and among SDF's achievements to date are:

• capacity building, support and networking for existing community groups
• training for community groups
• project-specific community engagement work
• information and advice to existing community groups
• working with drug and alcohol forums to facilitate community representation
• promoting community engagement to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships. 

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Promoting access to education, training and jobs

Access to education, training and jobs to help recovering drug users move on to a normal life is vital to their chances of moving away from problematic drug and its associated costs in financial and human terms.

SDF works to identify gaps in services and barriers to accessing education, training and employment in order to encourage action and solutions.

SDF has compiled a database of employability services for drug users - Pathways to Employment.


Addiction Workers Training Project

In 2004, SDF launched a ground-breaking pilot scheme supporting former drug users to train and qualify in substance misuse work while also doing work placements in local drug agencies, the Addiction Workers' Training Project.

This project has since won two major awards in a prestigious Scottish newspaper social care awards scheme, winning the Best Practice Initiative of the Year and being Commended in the Education Initiative of the Year category of the inaugural Herald Society Awards 2008.

The Awards - for the most modern, most imaginative and most inspiring work carried out in the public and voluntary sectors in Scotland – attracted well over 200 entries from more than 100 projects across a variety of categories.

AWTP involves trainee addiction workers, including former homeless people and ex-offenders who have experienced multiple barriers to employment, taking part in a mixture of college-based education at Glasgow College of Nautical Studies and work placement training.

This leads to accredited Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQ) in Health and Social Care, and employment, particularly in the addictions field.

AWTP is the first project in Scotland to develop a multi-agency approach to employability for former substance users while offering students a wage while training. Since its launch in 2004, 71 of the 82 people - more than 80 percent - who embarked on AWTP have completed the course.  At July 2010, 56 of the 82 who started the course have moved into work, mainly social care.  

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Research, consultancy and service reviews

SdF undertakes a range of research and consultancy activities, from internal support to UI groups to commissioned work from service providers and planners to help them improve their response to drug use.

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Training

• drug-related issues for a range of statutory and voluntary agencies 
  (eg crack/crack cocaine awareness, heroin smoking and cannabis use)
  
• Critical Incidents Training – a national training scheme which equips drug users, their friends and families with the information, advice and basic first aid skills to prevent and respond to drug overdoses
  
• Hepatitis C prevention among vulnerable young people.   

Critical Incidents Training

Scottish Drugs Forum is working in partnership with project funders, The Scottish Government, on this initiative and we plan, develop and deliver a range of critical incident training programmes for drug using groups, their peers and family/community groups.

Key training areas include recognising overdose signs and symptoms, identifying at risk 'groups' & 'behaviours' and first aid response, including resuscitation.

The SdF Critical Incidents Training post-holder also plans, develops and delivers a range of critical incident "training the trainers" programmes for other key stakeholders including User Involvement Groups, Family Support Coordinators, Scottish Prison Service staff and Scottish Needle Exchange workers.

Hepatitic C prevention among vulnerable young people

This training post of Hepatitis C Young Persons Intervention Development Officer was launched in May 2009 to work with vulnerable young people on a range of topics associated with tackling the spread of the virus.. 

The young people will be targeted through training staff in social care charities to cascade information on HCV prevention to their young clients at risk of contracting the virus, through injecting drug use and other routes such as tattooing.

The project will be funded for two years through Hepatitis C Action Plan in Scotland monies.

SDF Training suite 

SDF has quality meeting and training rooms available to hire at its city centre offices in Glasgow

• Versatile main training room with flexible seating arrangements - caters for up to 30
• Quality audio visual aids including: Internet connected PC, ceiling mounted projector and fixed wall projector screen
• Additional meeting and breakout rooms for 8 to 10 people

For further details and costs, including membership discount, please email: enquiries@sdf.org.uk

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Conferences and briefings

Conferences

Since its inception, SDF has acquired a reputation for delivering topical and relevant seminars and conferences to those working directly and indirectly with drug issues.

We host two major conferences per year, with previous themes including links between poverty and problematic drug use, cocaine use, safer injecting rooms, heroin prescription, drug-related deaths, substitute prescribing and hepatitis C.

Smaller events are also held regularly, such as our series on Patterns & Trends seminars.

For information on events open to the public, see SDF events. For working group events and other diary dates for SDF members, see Members area.

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Information and publications

Our corporate communications activity is specifically targeted to inform and educate members and the wider community about a wide range of issues which impact on reducing drugs harm.

This is done through our:

• Information and library service  
• online Directory of Scottish Drug Services
• Website
• Media relations service
• Publications

Information and library service

SdF handles over 3000 enquiries a year, providing general and specialist information on drugs and drug-related issues to professionals, students, the business community and the general public. We also maintain a library containing periodicals, magazine and other resources.

Online Directory of Scottish Drug Services

Scottish Drugs Forum’s online Directory of Scottish Drug Services  www.scottishdrugservices.com  is funded by the Scottish Government and features details on more than 220 drug treatment services throughout Scotland.

The online Directory, which SdF updates on a regular basis, aims to make information on the range of services available in Scotland more easy to find by the general public, as well as to practitioners.

More comprehensive information about the services – ranging from how to be referred to them to the type of help on offer – is included in the site. It also now has the ability to search on a variety of categories including postcode areas.

Media relations

We are recognised by the mainstream and specialist media as an authoritative source of information on drug issues in Scotland and beyond.

SdF has become increasingly pro-active in communicating SdF's stance on issues of interest and concern to the news media.

We offer an out-of-hours service to answer journalists' queries and are regularly approached to provide on-the-record and background briefings on topical issues within the drugs field.

Publications

SdF publishes a range of newsletters and leaflets on a wide variety of issues.