04/05/21
This month a new overdose awareness and naloxone poster campaign launched in various cities throughout the UK.
Naloxone is a life-saving medication used to reverse the effects of opioids. It can save a person’s life if it is used quickly after an overdose is taken.
The posters feature the faces of real community naloxone carriers and their stories of why they carry naloxone, and have gone up in locations around Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dundee, including Argyle Street in Glasgow, and Calton Road in Edinburgh.
There is lots of work ongoing in Scotland to develop and widen naloxone provision in communities.
One of those projects is the development of Peer naloxone supply. SDF is working alongside our partners in the Borders (We Are With You), Dundee (Hillcrest Futures) and the three Glasgow prisons (SPS/NHS) to introduce this with funding from the Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce.
Wez Steele, SDF’s Training and Development Officer said: “Peers have a unique skill set allowing them increased access and a credibility with people who use drugs and their family members, meaning peers reach people that services simply cannot.
“We look forward to being able to officially launch our project in the coming weeks and welcome the increased awareness from campaigns that normalise naloxone and encourage more people to be trained to carry and use naloxone.
“Naloxone can help save a life, but only in the hands of the right people, in the right place, at the right time – that’s what peers can and do achieve. It is high time we acknowledge this and paying our peer’s for their time and expertise goes some way towards giving them the credit they rightly deserve.”
The training Wez delivers has had very positive feedback, with one participant saying, “I feel I have the ability to train others to use naloxone in a confident well-informed manner.”
Another participant said, “The training on how to approach an overdose was so useful, as this is becoming a more common occurrence in the area and too few people are able to step in.”
As well as in person training, SDF also provide a free online e-learning course, Overdose Prevention, Intervention and Naloxone.
To find out more about naloxone training delivered by SDF with other partners, contact enquiries@sdf.org.uk.