8 December 2022
Scottish Drugs Forum has won a prestigious prize for its public communication.
At the award ceremony, held in the Scottish Parliament last night, SDF received the 2022 Scottish Public Services Award for Communications.
The award was for SDF’s work on How to Save A Life, a major public campaign that ran from August last year until January. The campaign promoted public understanding of overdose and how to recognise and intervene in an overdose situation. Through the campaign people were able to get a supply of naloxone.
The campaign commissioned by the Scottish Government, involved television, radio, social media as well as physical advertising – billboards etc.
Director of Operations Kirsten Horsburgh and Communications Worker Lisa Maclean attended to accept the award which is organised by Holyrood Communications and The Scottish Parliament.
Kirsten said “It’s a privilege to receive the award on behalf of SDF. Co-ordinating a campaign of this size was a new experience for us and we worked with some great people to deliver it. A special thanks to Gary Lamont at Bauer Media and Amy Muscat at Muscat Media who were critical to the success of the project.
“Thank you to the judges of the SPSA awards for recognising the importance of this work. We have a lot to do in Scotland to prevent drug deaths, we hope this campaign has helped to highlight that.”
Lisa a graphic artist who studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee, said “The creative work on the campaign was a chance to work across a range of media. There were real time pressures but we developed the design then worked with media experts to deliver the campaign on time for International Overdose Awareness Day in August.’
David Liddell, CEO, added ‘This is a great example of SDF’s ability to produce high quality work. We had three weeks in which to devise, commission and deliver a national campaign and we did it to a very high standard.
‘I would like to thank Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs, for scaling up their Click and Deliver online naloxone ordering service which meant people could respond to the campaign and get a naloxone supply quickly.’
The campaign has been independently evaluated by Kirsten Trayner and Andy McAuley at Glasgow Caledonian, Harry Sumnal and Amanda Atkinson at Liverpool John Moores University and Martin Anderson, researcher at SDF.
Click here to see the full list of winners and photos from the event
