The Service Manager at SIG Bridge House, Alex Sinclair, arranged for Ark Farm to hold an indoor furry and friendly experience for the mums and children at the service.
Ark brought with them a range of bantam chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, a friendly Labrador, pygmy African hedgehogs, Horsefield tortoises, sugar gliders, a barn owl and goats.
Ark delivered a hands-on, educational, and tactile experience to the children and women, and the children took turns holding the animals and asking many questions about them. They were educated on all the animals including their ages, how to care for them, what they enjoy, what they eat, their routines etc.
For many of the families at Bridge House this was their first encounter with some of these animals and the goats were certainly a favourite. The children enjoyed holding and feeding the animals the most.
This was an exciting opportunity for the families who may otherwise not have had the opportunity to enjoy such a service.
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Just under half of all drug poisoning deaths in England and Wales involved an opiate, while – as was the case in Scotland – deaths involving cocaine have increased, with 8 per cent more than the previous year. With international cocaine production at record high levels (
Over one hundred films have been entered into the festival competition and these entries have been watched by well over one million people to date. The idea has always been to give people with lived experience a platform to share their stories of hope and recovery with the public, in community hubs, classrooms, conferences, urban spaces, and just about any other place you can fit a screen and some willing viewers.
The event served a dual purpose of celebrating ten years of service to the community and recognising the staff working for Synergy, some from its inception in 2012. 
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The campaign events continue to demonstrate the incredible ingenuity and creativity of this sector. Over the years, we’ve seen art displays, music concerts, demonstrations and processions, street performances, political workshops, press conferences, webinars, radio shows, and so much more. In June 2022, the campaign partners organised media events in Nigeria, community events in Canada, harm reduction workshops in Colombia, rallies and speeches in Morocco, naloxone training in Ireland, film screenings in Australia, community outreach in Portugal, street performances in Zimbabwe, and the list goes on. Here in the UK, the powerful Anyone’s Child network held a lobby event outside Parliament calling for reform of our own drug laws.
Challenging stigma about drugs, alcohol and any kind of addiction has become part of life for all of us. We’ve seen how it affects us, our families and friends, and people we work with. But being bombarded by stereotypes each day in the media can make the task feel overwhelming, as stigmatising words and images have become the norm and part of everyday communication.
The training is just one part of Change Grow Lives wider harm reduction strategy that also encompasses the micro elimination of Hepatitis C, increasing access to structured treatment, enhanced outreach work, continued focus on optimised dosing and improving the coverage and quality of needle and syringe programmes. 
Cocaine manufacture grew by more than 10 per cent between 2019 and 2020 to more than 1,900 tons, according to 
Records from Ireland’s National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS) show that almost 11,000 cases were treated for problem drug use last year – the database records treatment episodes rather than people, which means the same person could be counted more than once if they had more than one treatment episode in a year, HRB points out. Two out of five cases were new to treatment, with almost a third seeking treatment for cocaine. ‘In 2021, for the first time, the NDTRS recorded more cocaine (3,248) than heroin (3,168) cases among those treated for drugs as a main problem,’ says the agency.
‘We are observing a sustained increase in cocaine treatment year-on-year,’ said HRB senior researcher, Dr Suzi Lyons. ‘In 2019 we saw cocaine overtake cannabis as the main problem drug; this year the numbers reported as seeking treatment for cocaine exceed those for heroin – which may mark a tipping point in Irish addiction trends.’ The fact that almost two-thirds were mixing cocaine with other drugs was also a concern as ‘mixing drugs can impact recovery and increase risk of overdose,’ she added. However, there had been ‘some positive developments as regards risk behaviour, with the proportion of cases that had ever injected drugs decreasing from around one-third in 2015 to just over one-fifth in 2021. The reduction is even more notable for new cases, and in 2021 only 4 per cent reported ever injecting compared to 15 per cent in 2015.’
The rise in ‘copycat’ ecstasy was caused by lack of demand as a result of COVID lockdowns and compounded by Brexit-related supply chain issues, 
The study, by the University of Sheffield, Australia’s University of Newcastle and Figure 8 Consultancy Services employed a ‘large programme of mixed-methods research’ to examine patterns of alcohol purchasing and consumption among people drinking at harmful levels, including those dependent on alcohol and people engaged with treatment services. It also studied the impact on other key groups, such as family members and people living in remote or rural areas. The research included interviews with people presenting for treatment, harmful drinkers in the community, treatment providers, family members, carers and others. Data for the study were gathered both before and after implementation of MUP in 2018, and in Northern England as well as Scotland to enable comparisons to be made.
After leaving their job in hospitality due to the pandemic, Tiggy decided to volunteer with Humankind after an online employability quiz suggested they’d be suited to a career in a caring role.
I was in treatment at Derbyshire Recovery Partnership when my key worker first introduced me to Recovery through Nature (RtN), run by Phoenix Futures. I connected with the programme straight away – I thought it was a brilliant opportunity not only to connect with nature but also to people with similar experiences as me in a safe environment. After two years of being on the programme, I finished treatment and became a volunteer. This was just as the country went into the first lockdown, but fortunately I was able to keep volunteering as the gardens still needed to be maintained. I’m not sure what I would have done without RtN at this time.
We’ve been awarded the Investing in Volunteers standard, which shows the value we place on volunteering. However, it’s also a celebration of the volunteer experience at Change Grow Live.
When it comes to recovery, people have long argued over what it really means – how would he define it? ‘It’s different for everyone and I wouldn’t try to prescribe my own routes to anyone else, but I think you’ve got to have a balance of abstinence and harm reduction. I think it’s got to be understanding this is an illness, and trying to provide the right support to the person so that it’s person-centred.’
Emergency call handlers need better training around dealing with overdose situations, according to a new report from the Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF). Some call handlers have been giving advice that conflicts with that provided in naloxone training, says 
This lack of women in senior roles has meant that the opinions and experiences of women have often not been heard during decision-making discussions and this, combined with very little gender-specific research, has led to the needs of women not being considered in the design of services. For example, it’s a lot more difficult to pick up a script every day or attend a group session if the pharmacy is on the other side of town, you don’t have access to a car and you have two children in tow.
From the start, we’ve tried to come at the problem from a different angle than other cross-organisational meetings (which in themselves are a fairly rare occurrence). We are a time-limited group – we’ve collaborated to build a shared understanding of the problem, and we recognise that focussing on women’s issues are a small fragment of our day jobs. We are forgiving, kind and unafraid. We’ve tried hard to come together with a different perspective. We don’t come to the meetings as representatives of our organisations, or to tell each other how brilliant our organisation is. We come together as women. We share jokes and have developed a space for psychological safety. It’s given us an opportunity to be bolder and to focus more on the needs of women – something we’ve all wondered if we could have done more of in our day jobs, or, as in my case, across my career.