What’s on the programme
9.00am-10.00am: Registration and refreshments
10.00am-11.15am: Opening session.
Welcome – Neil Hunt sets the scene with a call for direct action.
Members of DISC’s peer-led Recovery Community, BRIC, tell how they’ve created The Hub, a safe environment in which people can develop their life skills, practical skills and confidence.
Sophie Strachan talks from first-hand experience about drug use and HIV, and brings a wealth of advice from her work with Positively UK in prisons.
Members of the San Patrignano community in Italy share their inspiring story. For the past 30 years the community has welcomed young men and women with serious problems linked to drug addiction completely free of charge, and without any discrimination. Now home to about 1,300 people, the community helps its residents to change their lives for the better through study, learning a trade and becoming active members of society.
11.15am-11.45am: Refreshments
11.45am-12.45pm: Challenges to ‘making it happen’ – a panel discussion with audience participation, chaired by Alex Boyt, service user coordinator.
Panel: Dr Judith Yates, GP; Kirstie Douse, Release; Anna Millington; Pete Burkinshaw, PHE; Bob Campbell, Phoenix Futures.
12.45pm-1.45pm: Lunch
Band and entertainment, exhibition including the service user groups, harm reduction café, head and shoulder massages, taster sessions on auricular acupuncture, yoga class, film show, photo booth (all day).
1.45pm-3.00pm: ‘Perspectives’, chaired by Alistair Sinclair, UKRF
Naloxone – Nigel Brunsdon, Injecting Advice and HIT
Visible recovery – Lancashire User Forum (LUF)
Hep C van – Jim Conneely, Hepatitis C Trust
The case for drug consumption rooms – Philippe Bonnet, founder of the Independent Consortium on Drug Consumption Rooms
UK recovery communities – Lester Morse, East Coast Recovery
3.00pm-4.00pm: Final session, chaired by Carole Sharma, FDAP
Over to the audience: ‘How have you made it happen?’
Tell us how you have overcome obstacles to make positive change happen for yourself or others.
Final speaker: Tim Sampey, Build on Belief (BoB), a charity set up by SUs, on how they made it happen.