Harm Reduction Victoria
- Oct 25, 2023
- 4 min read

Communications

Updated: Dec 6, 2023

This report serves as a testament to the tireless efforts put forth by our communications worker(s) and our entire team, who have strived to amplify our reach, advocate for change, and foster connections within the drug user, and wider harm reduction community and beyond.

Over the course of this financial year;

The challenge of moving offices from a suburb we’ve been in for over 15 years to a new suburb where the community does not yet know us, we have encountered unique challenges and celebrated remarkable successes,.

As we navigate an evolving landscape and work to address the ever-changing needs of our community, this report underlines our dedication to transparent, impactful, relevant and compassionate communication.

It is a reflection of our commitment to embodying the values of harm reduction in everything HRVic does.

The strategies and channels that HRVic uses to reach and engage with our community of people who use drugs in Victoria are as follows:

Printed materials/resources & WHACK Magazine
Social media campaigns
Website content
Email newsletters
Events and workshops
Partnerships with other organizations

WHACK Magazine

Issues printed in 2022-23 FY: 3

Total Printed Per Issue: (and size of mag)

#46- 3000 copies (52pages)

#47- 2200 copies (52pages)

#48 HRPW Special HR23 Issue

1500 copies (54pages)

WHACK Readership: (per issue-#46,47)

2200-3000 Magazines;

Readership per Issue:

904 Individual Members (AusPost)

60 x Organisational/Agency members (between 2 -120 magazines each) Courier or HRVic delivered)

11 x Regional Victorian agencies (courier)

7 x Interstate Australia (courier)

1 x International (box of 50 mags) (AusPost)

Community Content Percentage:

98% of all Illustrations/artwork submitted by local community

(peer) artists and 80% written submissions are by community including peer reviewed conferences and events.

This FY, we chose to focus on the ongoing systemic issues that create barriers to accessing health and wellbeing services for people who use drugs such as criminalisation, stigma and discrimination. We also chose to highlight the inspirational international peer workforce for the 2023 Harm Reduction Conference and lead up.

Special Edition WHACK #48- Harm Reduction Peer Worker (HRPW) HR23 Issue:

Our Comms and Fuse Coordinators took advantage of being in Europe/UK for INHSU to bring to fruition the Special Fuse Issue of WHACK on Harm Reduction Peer Workers and Peer Leaders. We made good use of our time away to interview HRPW from around the globe and travelled to 6 countries in the EU and UK in 2 weeks to create this Special issue of WHACK magazine for HR23 which got put in each delegates bag.

1000 magazines & 1000 Pull out A3 Fuse Initiatives Posters, designed by a living experience community member depicting the “ingredients” that make up the values & principles of harm reduction peer work, were put into in each HR23 Delegate bag, expanding HRVic’s reach and engagement both Nationally and Internationally.

HR23-Harm Reduction International’s Global Harm Reduction Conference:

As the local host and partner for HR23, this collaboration was an opportunity to showcase Australian harm reduction work.

In my view, a large part of Comms work is to recognise and to take advantage of untapped potential marketing and engagement opportunities.

One such under utilised opportunity is the The ‘Community Areas’ or ‘Market Areas’ of conferences where there is a little more freedom to have fun with how you share information and promote your organisations and services. Not being part of the main programming of a conference need not limit the impact you have on conference goers. The benefits range from face to face networking & engagement and information dissemination, to personal peer education and harm reduction interventions to visibility-The stall serves as a platform to showcase your organisation, its mission, and its initiatives. This visibility can attract the attention of potential funders, collaborators, and peers who may not attend the presentations but are interested in your work. Our stall at HR23 did all of these things.

Our stall, shared with AIVL, our national drug user org, was a special comms project- worked on by all and any members and staff of HRVic who wanted to. We discovered that having a creative ‘side project’ to stop our regular work for a couple hours in a day, helped a lot of people to stay focused and engaged in their regular work.

Starting months prior, with only a rough concept and an idea of giving out our NSP equipment in a type of ‘happy meal’ led to the overall concept of our utopian future where harm reduction and drug use were no longer a stigmatising topic so much so that you could get harm reduction supplies and equipment as quickly and conveniently as you could a take-away burger meal. And were just as accessible.

“ 1 million Saved “ instead of “1 million served” would be on our (solar) lit up street sign.

Website

The website is slowly morphing into a reliable go-to source of information, education and communication between potential members and members alike. It is slowly but continuously evolving to respond to our needs and wants as peer workers and as fellow community members. The ‘chat’ function has created another anonymous avenue for connection and to ask questions or get quick ‘directions’ to website content. 2023-2024 will see community consultations with community and other peer service orgs/allies around harm reduction merch ie. Products with a message including the introduction of a Print On Demand service to aquire uniforms for volunteers through a member only portal on our website. Peers and community members are proud of the work they do and want to take those messages into their daily lives. This sparks conversation and opportunities for BIs within community’s natural environs and a reach to more places than just within services or workplaces.

TRAFFIC
TOTAL SITE VISITS	37.2K	^Up by 35% this FY
UNIQUE VISITORS	24,285
AVRG. SESSION DURATION	4min 3 sec
FOUND VIA	40%	Google Search
	24% (8,094 visitors)	Direct Marketing/Business cards etc
PAGE VISITS	11,376 (+31%)	HomePage
	7898 (+41%)	Resources
	6238 (+41%)	PAMS

Social Media

HRVic continues to increase it’s reach through various platforms in 2022-23. Our engagement with community has slowed on Facebook, but continually rises on Instagram, ‘X’ (nee Twitter), TikTok ,YouTube and Pinterest to share our harm reduction resources with the world.