Hi, I’m Sione Crawford.
Harm Reduction Victoria's CEO.

What is living experience?

For many years drug user organisations used the term peer and peer worker to mean

'a person who is currently using drugs in the same way as the community that we work with.'

This equality is important, and it provides the basis for peer education.

Sometimes, when we needed to, we would call ourselves lived experience workers.

Over the years peer workers have arisen in a range of roles outside those we held.

For example, there are 'lived experience peer workers' who work in recovery and abstinence.

Because we needed a way to be clear that the peer workforce we are and we need to support is those with current experience of the criminalised marketplace current drug trends and risk of blood borne virus transmission, we have started using the term living experience far more often.

So if you see that phrase popping up, know that we mean people who use drugs who are using their current experience and knowledge to work to reduce harms like hepatitis C transmission and overdose risk and so on, with our community, like we always have!

CEO Report

Membership

937 Victorians are Individual Members of HRVic

60 Organisations and Services are Organisational Members

Partners & Stakeholders

In the past year we have partnered with many in the sector to bring our community knowledge and consultation to projects and to improve outcomes for our peers. We would like to acknowledge these partnerships which include:

AIVL - Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug User's League
EC Australia
Burnet Institute
RMIT University
NCCRED -Prompt Response Network
Students for Sensible Drug Policy
Penington Institute
Cohealth; Healthworks and Innerspace
The Salvation Army - Access Health
SHARC / APSU
North Richmond Community Health Melbourne Supervised Injecting Room
LaTrobe Uni - ARCSHS
Bayside Peninsula AOD
Doherty Institute
NWMPHN (North-Western Melbourne Primary Health Network)
Barwon South-West Pharmacotherapy Network, (PABN 1),
ORTiCare (PABN 2),
Hume Area Pharmacotherapy Network and Gippsland Pharmacotherapy Network, (PABN 3),
Area 4 Pharmacotherapy Network, (PABN 4),
North-West Melbourne Pharmacotherapy Network, (PABN 5).
St Vincent's Hospital
Barwon Health
Thorne Harbour Health
Youth Projects - Living Room
Vixen Collective
VAADA
Association of Alcohol and other Drug Agencies Northern Territory (AADANT)

In particular we would like to acknowledge and thank the following for partnering and providing significant funding to us:

Victorian State Government

HRVic Programs

Needle & Syringe Program
PAMS-Pharmacotherapy Advocacy Mediation Support
DanceWize
GBV-Trauma & Gender-Based Violence program
DOPE- Drug Overdose Prevention Education
BBV Health Promotion, It's Your Right & Peer Assisted Hep C Treatment (PATH)
Safer Using/Vein Care Health Promotion
GoGo- Getting Older & Getting On
Fuse Initiatives- Harm Reduction Peer Worker Support
WHACK Magazine - Community-Driven Harm Reduction Publication

HRVic Staff

Current HRVic Staff Team as at January 2023

Ally Anketell – DanceWize Project Officer

Amanda Callus - It's Your Right Health Promotion

Bee Hayes – DanceWize Coordinator (to Nov 2022) and PAMS Data Project Lead

Ben Yonson – Organisational Services Support and HR23 Conference Support

Brittany Chapman – Health Promotion Officer

Caro Weidner - Health Promotion Officer

Christian Vega - FUSE Initiatives – Living Experience Education

Jackson McClean - DanceWize Casual Support

Jane Dicka - Health Promotion & D.O.P.E Coordinator

Jess Holcombe – Organisational Services Coordinator

Jimmy Harrington - PAMS Service Officer

Lesa Ryan – It's Your Right Health Promotion

Liam Troon - DanceWize Project Officer

Mae Vincent - DanceWize Gender-Based Violence Service Coordinator

Matthew Plumb- FUSE Initiatives – Policy

Michael Hreczucha - It's Your Right Health Promotion

Nadia Gavin - Fuse Initiatives Coordinator

Nick Kent – Policy and Campaigns Lead

Nick Wallis - DanceWize Coordinator

Samantha Jones – Communications Officer

Sarah Lord - PAMS Coordinator

Snowy Primmer – Organisational Services Officer

Team Members who left Jul 2021- Jan 2023

Amelia Berg

Daniel Ward

Stephanie Tzanetis

Hunter Morgan

Leora Robertson

Lily Fraser

Jessie Murray

Stuart Armstrong

Sammy Bamford

Volunteers & Community

In 2021-2022 HRVic had 176 active volunteers across the organisation's programs. WHACK magazine also has over 10 regular submitters of articles and accompanying illustrations.