2022-23 has been a year of growth and opportunity for Fuse Initiatives.
We welcomed Christian Vega and Matt Plumb to the team. Christian is the Workplace Integration Lead with a focus on developing and delivering induction, and skill development training for Harm Reduction Peer Workers (HRPWs) and expand the understanding of our skill set and philosophy. Matt is the Policy Officer, developing imperative framework and other policy documents to help create change and make workplaces safer for HRPWs.
HR23 Melbourne
Harm Reduction 2023 was great for Fuse Initiatives. The team was involved in many aspects behind the scenes, in the lead up to the bi-annual conference as well as making the most of the many other opportunities that only an international conference of this size coming to your city can bring.
Harm Reduction Peer Worker (HRPW) Scholarships
The Victorian Department of Health, invested in the harm reduction peer workforce by providing full scholarships for 20 Victorian harm reduction peer workers to attend the international conference.Through these scholarships, the Victorian Department of Health not only acknowledges the significant contributions of harm reduction peer workers but also addresses the need for increased representation, knowledge-sharing, and networking in the global harm reduction community. This investment underscores the department's commitment to advancing evidence-based and compassionate public health approaches.
The international conference provides an exceptional platform for peer workers to gain insights from global experts, share their own experiences, and connect with professionals who share similar goals worldwide. By providing these scholarships, the Victorian Department of Health is enabling the exchange of best practices, the dissemination of innovative ideas, and the establishment of collaborations that will ultimately benefit the broader harm reduction community and the individuals it serves.
Harm Reduction Peer Worker (HRPW) Presentations At HR23
3 of our awesome HRPW (harm reduction peer workers) & members of Fuse Network had their abstract accepted and presented at HR23. They provided insights into some of the structural and systemic barriers they had faced in the workplace and described how their involvement in the Network has made them feel safer and more supported whilst also providing an opportunity to collectively enhance their peer work practice.
The Australian Stream
The Australian Stream at the conference was developed and offered an international platform to speak on really important topics such as the findings and recommendations from the Coronial Enquiry into the Veronica Nelson death in custody case.
Workshops
Fuse Initiatives ran a workshop that we developed on best practice tools for the implementation of a current PWU/ID peer workforce in mainstream health services in Victoria.
Supportive Interventions for HRPW
Fuse Network (our support/mentoring & skill development network of practice for HPRW that work outside of DUO’S in mainstream harm reduction services in Victoria) we meet monthly for 2hrs =12 x per year (we also include special event like lunches & excursions ) 4 x per year.
The Fuse Network HRPW Membership has grown - starting out with 6 members, we are now sitting at 19 HRPW members accessing FN and 24 HRPWs on our mailing list.
We are now able to provide external discipline specific supervision, which is so exciting for us.
Amelia & Nadia are now qualified to provide supervision. As soon as we had finished our Support & Supervision Framework, 5 x HRPW started accessing monthly supervision.
Many more HRPW have expressed the need and want for supervision, but we don’t have the capacity atm, especially while we are developing other important strategic documents as a part of LLEW Development Partnership.
We have had a couple of interstate requests, for this same supervision but our focus is Victoria, this is a fee for service model.
The Victorian Harm Reduction Peer Workforce Strategy
Fuse Initiatives took the opportunity to launch the Victorian Harm Reduction Peer Workforce Strategy at the VAADA conference 2023, whilst running a workshop on what cultural safety for HRPW should look like in the workplace as well as the values and principles of harm reduction peer work itself.
End of partnering on Fuse Initiative with APSU
It is the end of an era, we want to thank APSU for being our partners, helping support the progression of the harm reduction peer worker (living experience) perspective, we want to say a big thank you. This is the end of a project partnership but not the end, we now all have a better understanding of perspectives, that follows the continuum of drug use and a much-strengthened relationship with APSU & SHARC into the future
LLEW Development
The Victorian Mental Health Royal Commission recommendations announced the need for total system reform, there were 40 + recommendations.
At the center of these recommendations there was a call for lived and living experience workers to be at the center of creating a whole of systems reform.
The LLEW (lived & living experience workforce) Development Partnership Project funded the development of lived and living experience workforces; these were the mental health consumers, AOD recovery, family & carer and harm reduction peer workforces. This created new opportunities for Fuse Initiatives: new staff and new work to help build and sustain the living experience/harm reduction peer workforce.
Special HRPW Issue of WHACK Magazine
Special Edition WHACK magazines went into every delegate conference bag at HR23-the International Harm Reduction Conference held in Melbourne in 2023.
We commissioned a local artist and HRPW to create an A3 poster of our Values & Principles of Peer Work and inserted into EVERY single WHACK magazine that went into the 1000 delegate bags at HR23. What an awesome way to showcase peer workers and the work that we do and what drives us to keep doing it.
Show what we DUO’s mean by real peer leadership; show the varying roles, from frontline work with our communities, peers in management, research, and governmental roles.
Whilst in Europe, we interviewed HRPW from all over the UK and the EU while trying to visit Safe Consumption Sites (if available) in each city we stopped in.
Above: the Values & Principles of Peer Work poster illustrated by HRPW S.Jones for Fuse Initiatives and WHACK 48 Special Issue 2023
While in Barcelona, Spain we made it a point to check out Metzineres, the only peer led female/trans/nonbinary only drug consumption room, it was so awesome, it had such a welcoming vibe, female focused harm reduction services, yes please!!! If you want to find out more about Metzineres or any of the interviews or articles, read WHACKs peer worker special edition.
We are currently in the process of developing:
· Discipline Specific Framework for HRPW in partnership with the other LLE (lived & living experience) workforces
· Bank of Best practice Position Descriptions for HRPWs employed by mainstream organisations.
· Developing and delivering a training curriculum for HRPWs following the employment of a Living Experience Peer Educator.
· Funding was also provided to pay for the participation for HRPWs to engaged in the development of these projects and across the workforces to provide their living experience and harm reduction expertise/perspectives through a process of peer-led meaningful involvement.
· Fuse Network was funded to continue providing support and supervision to HRPWs. Monthly meetings provide HRPWs to connect with their community of peers and share their experiences, both their successes and challenges, within a supportive and safe environment.
· Fuse Network provided 147 supportive interventions in 2022-2023