One of the issues I have when writing these reports is that there is no way, in this short piece, to do justice to all of the work and all of the team members and volunteers that do that work for and with our community across the year. To get a wider sense of our work I urge you to check out the different program reports across the pages of this, our Annual Report for 2022 – 2023.
On August 31 last year we, along with our friends at Access Health, St. Kilda, undertook a public event at the Victorian Parliament Steps, rallying for a range of changes to public policy that we believe would lower overdose rates and lead to better lives for people who use drugs, as well as to remember those who have not survived the drug war. The steps looked amazing with so many of our crew and community showing up to support us, from politicians to service providers and of course people who use drugs.
Harm reduction is not just a service provision modality but a philosophy of love, care and empowerment, but too often stigma, discrimination and poor policy combine to make the work of harm reduction more challenging than it has to be.
In April, we co-hosted the 27th Harm Reduction International Conference. Those involved know that a universe of experiences are contained in that sentence. This was a big deal for us and to be the local partner was an amazing opportunity to show the capacity of Victoria’s community of people who use drugs and harm reductionists.
In summary, it was a fantastic experience and opportunity and one that stretched us and also showed us how innovative and resourceful we are. Everyone at HRVic made this happen but I have to call out Nick Kent and Ben Yonson for taking on a coordinating role that we may not have expected at the start of this journey – including when I went into hospital for surgery unexpectedly – and Samantha Jones who envisaged and designed and largely produced what Pat O’Hare – HRI’s founder – called the best conference stall he had ever seen.
The Harm Reduction International conference followed hot on the heels of our move into a new premises in Brunswick. We have space now to undertake community events, forums and large meetings that were impossible at Peel St HQ. Jess Holcombe should take a bow for wrangling us into this new building. There was a lot of heartache in the process – continually held up by things outside our control – but we are set up for a number of years now.
A fantastic benefit of having a bit more space is that we can co-locate with allies. In particular we are proud to share the building with Vixen, Victoria’s peer organisation of sex workers. Sex workers and people who inject drugs have long had shared communities and worked together strategically to prevent HIV in our communities and to break down stigma.
Stigmatising health promotion campaigns aimed at people who use and inject drugs are too common, so it has been fantastic to partner with EC Australia to roll out the Victorian arm of the It’s Your Right: Live Free of Hep C campaign that challenges this.
Empowering messages that spoke to our communities were co-developed and designed to remind people who use drugs that we all deserve hepatitis C testing and treatment if we need it – that it is our right.
Messages like “get clear while on gear” and “clear it again and again” aimed to remind people they could treat hep C while still using and that we do not lose the right to treatment if we get hep C again. We ran peer / nurse testing and treatment partnerships at three sites across Victoria and we are still working in West Melbourne out of an outreach bus, testing and treating people. We have a number of fantastic peer workers that did or are doing the work of reaching out to the community and bringing them to the sites for discussions with a nurse. I want to highlight Lesa, Zenn, Amanda, Mark, Michael and Ryan who have contributed to the success of this project by being amazing communicators and all-around stars.
Programs like our NSP and our outreach peer education programs that work with community health and other community service providers were hamstrung by the Omicron outbreak in late 2022. Many healthcare providers remained open but did not allow outside organisations like ours back in for many months following that (hopefully) last outbreak. I couldn’t quite believe it was so recent until I checked the dates.
The PAMS team are used to crises and as the lack of pharmacotherapy prescribers has tipped over into almost permanent crisis mode, it is amazing to see how integral the PAMS team are to helping coordinated responses to these crises in Victoria. They help hundreds and thousands of people remain on pharmacotherapy every year. Although we have had the great victory of dosing being subsidised by the Commonwealth PBS scheme finally, the team has barely slowed down, despite financial issues being a major issue of concern until the changes occurred.
I want to thank Bee Hayes for coordinating DanceWize until November last year and Nick Wallis for stepping up to coordinate the program in an interim role until the end of the last season, ably supported by Aly Anketell. I’m happy that Nick is now in the role permanently and is working on sustainability and has welcomed Jaz into the team. They are working on building communication and engagement with the Key Peer Educator volunteers and welcoming the range of skills and inputs they have into the future of the program. This program has never been funded sustainably with funding for just 2 full time positions spread across three team members.
We rely heavily on our volunteer’s good will and skills and on fees from promoters. But this is a leading harm reduction program that other states and countries want to emulate. It is frustrating to see these programs being funded sustainably when the originator is not.
In these conditions, the work of the team, the KPEs and Mae and her gender based violence counselling program volunteers is even more a testament to the strength of community. Working on improving this situation is a key priority for the year coming up.
Once more, a big thank you to our communities, staff and volunteers, our supporters, allies and funders.
I’m looking forward to working with you all again in 2024.
-Sione Crawford
