‘‘ It’ s not just about sterile equipment. The most important part is building relationships. Stigma is still, sadly, very prevalent.’
LOUISE HANSFORD, THE HEPATITIS C TRUST
the opportunity to change the permissions a little bit’. Commissioners could slowly bring about culture change in a local authority by‘ changing the language you put in those documents. For example, in all of the documents in my local authority we don’ t say“ service users”, we just say“ people”.
Nothing moved quickly in local government, he said. Naloxone programmes, for example, were slow to start but were now widely accepted, while drug checking was also becoming more accepted.‘ To providers I’ d say if you don’ t have a commissioner that’ s willing to say what I’ m saying, tell them“ this is the thing that needs to happen”. Share your frontline experience, share the emerging evidence, educate, challenge assumptions. Harm reduction comes from you guys – just come and tell us that it’ s a good idea and we’ ll try to support you to do it, especially if there’ s an evidence base.’
WOMEN’ S BARRIERS It was well known that women faced particular barriers to accessing services, said Rachel Halford of the Hepatitis C Trust – stigma, trauma, caring responsibilities and much more.‘ So what do we need to change so that women can, and want to, come through the door?’ Lack of choice was a huge issue, said Vicki Beere of the University of Manchester –‘ if you’ re in an area with a single provider and you fall out with that provider, where do you go?’ And this problem was far more acute if a woman was trying to avoid a violent ex-partner who attended a particular local service.‘ Women aren’ t coming in because they’ re too scared,’ she said. Sex workers were the‘ canaries in the coalmine’, added founding member of the Women’ s Inclusion Health Collective, Grace Sumner.‘ For many sex workers, harm reduction means actively avoiding your service.’‘ Why doesn’ t everyone have a women-only service?’ said Beere.‘ We need to totally revamp NDTMS, because what we’ re doing is prioritising performance management and ignoring the needs of people who come through the door. We desperately need a strong, sustainable, independent user voice across the sector’ – and not one that was attached to organisations.‘ We need to give harm reduction the LERO treatment,’ she stated.
Lack of representation remained a huge issue, said Dilesh Popat of Turning Point.‘ Do our services look like our cities?’ For years people had used words like community cohesion, with little behind it, but Turning Point’ s services were now genuinely representative of the communities they served, he said. But these relationships needed
to be consistent –‘ we can’ t do something for three months, six months, and then give up’.
YOUTH VOICES The summit closed with a look at young people’ s perspectives, and what this meant for harm reduction’ s future.‘ A big part of my job is giving young people the time of day to be heard on issues that affect them, and I think that’ s something that’ s very important to highlight,’ said AJ Erickson of Youth Rise.‘ Everyone has something to contribute, no matter their age.’ Young people’ s voices frequently weren’ t valued, however, and their experiences could be belittled. The key was to empower young people to know that their voice was just as powerful and useful as an older person.
So what might the future of harm reduction look like?‘ It must be youth-led, peerinformed, properly researched,’ said her colleague Cerys Tudor.‘ We need to maintain nonjudgemental, low-barrier spaces where people can access the information, naloxone and any other services they need without the fear of stigma.’ Passion wasn’ t enough on its
CURRENTS FOR CHANGE
Bristol is a city with a complex past, heard passengers on the Transform Drug Policy Foundation boat tour, one of the fringe events. Sailing through Bristol’ s harbours, Transform’ s chief executive Jane Slater explained the‘ hidden’ histories of different psychoactive substances – nitrous oxide, tobacco, cannabis, alcohol, chocolate and sugar – and how they had been produced and transported. As Bristol had been crowned the UK’ s first city of harm reduction, it was an opportunity to consider how we’ re moving away from outdated‘ zero tolerance’ approaches and adopting pragmatic, evidence-based interventions, she said.
own, however.‘ Those grassroots and established services need sustainable support and funding if they’ re to continue long-term. The future of harm reduction is being built up all around us. Our responsibility is to listen to those communities, resource their work, and give them a meaningful role in what happens next.’ DDN
The National Harm Reduction Summit was organised jointly by Bristol Drugs Project, www. bdp. org. uk and The Hepatitis C Trust www. hepctrust. org. uk
16 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • JUNE 2026 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM