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This is my first ever blog and I feel a little apprehensive, it feels a bit like one is preparing to be exposed – as what I don’t know yet.
But I have two issues I’d like to raise. The first is ‘harm reduction’. Now whilst I have read with increasing interest everything on here about recovery and am an ardent supporter of recovery in it’s widest sense, I can not, nor do I think I can ever give up my belief in the importance of harm reduction too. I hope that one is not exclusive to the other.
I believe in harm reduction because no matter what I or you or our society thinks about a persons individual choice in what they do or take, their lives are more important than these moralities. I used harm reduction messages with my own children when they were teenagers and I continue to use them now as a young person’s drugs worker.
Which brings me to my second point, which is that, for a long time I have wondered if young people’s workers can contribute to emerging recovery debates at all, as most of the young people that we work with are very early in their drug lives and rarely do we work with entrenched or addicted young people.
But I have today realised that yes we can as our experiences and practices are actually already well in tune with recovery models. One reason for this may be that this work has not been traditionally placed within a medical model and because of this young people’s workers come from a plethora of backgrounds, bringing with them diverse and creative solutions.
As young people’s workers, many of us strive to divert young people from ‘treatment’ services. We have built partnerships with schools, trainers, employment agencies as well as sport & leisure and creative arts providers.
We have embraced, holistic therapies, family work, peer educators and support groups and any number of phycho social interventions. Because of the potential vulnerability of the young people that we work with we have always been alert to the power of appropriate role modelling and we have cottoned on quite some time ago to the knowledge that enabling a young person to develop or build on social capital in a meaningful and supported way can help to divert them from further more harmful drug use.
I am not implying at all that every thing is fine and hunky-dory in young people’s services. They are sparse, poorly funded and far from equitable – but I think we have developed ways of working that certainly parallel what I hear others want in adult services.
So whilst ‘recovery’ is not a term I have used with young people (nor do I think it an appropriate term for young people whose use is predominantly transcient) I think that many of us in this field have worked within the aims and values of ‘recovery’ for a long time without even knowing it.
In many ways I see this as quite exciting as for many years we have been seen as the poor relatives (who perhaps don’t ‘get’ the grown up work) but maybe now people can learn from what we have been doing intuitively. Just a thought!
Melody – absolutely great to have you on the site and this is a really interesting blog.
I must admit that I have been guilty of not thinking about – or being aware enough about – what is going on in young people’s services and this is a very powerful reminder. Thank you
Welcome to the site Melody and I really enjoyed your blog. I was talking to someone recently about harm reduction approaches and recovery ‘models’ if we can call them that. I think problems arise when we become too academic about things and protective about models/approaches rather than focused on the person and other people’s stories of recovery – and what helped at different stages.
Our recovery support group works very closely with a well known HR agency. We could appear to be ‘doing’ completely different work to one another, however, in practice, we have found that we both fit into an individual’s journey – from using, wanting to address their using, finding appropriate help and recovering. In fact, most of our referrals recently have come from this street drop in! So in a nutshell, no, I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. But problems can arise when people are only offered harm reduction.
I think you and other young person’s worker’s will be a real asset to this site and I hope you continue to share your experiences and knowledge. I think we could learn a lot from your approaches.
Thanks for blogging!
Melody, I only joined this week – you have really blogged a pucker blog and important issue, I really agree with all you have said, I harmed myself from my childhood to get rid of many feelimgs and pains.
Yet today like Sarah has just stated you will bring alot of wisdom to this site for others to read and feel safe to comment and blog, they will be able to realise there are people that understand and can connect with your knowledge.
The ultermate goal is to be in control of individuals actions, yet for me this has taken many years. I envy the young coming into treatment and support and have a pucker respect in the challanges individuals have to face -accept and understand why we harm ourselves, the underlying hiiden issues of guilt and shame.
Harm reduction is not just about drink and drugs, opens a whole area which is still miss understood by so many.Great Blog. I hope this gives the young generation the courage and strength to risk bloging and commenting.
Melody,
Great blog. Welcome aboard. Young people’s services are much more holistic and therefore recovery oriented almost by definition. It is timely that you and Keiran are posting at the same time.
Hi Melody, this blog is very timely for me as in a couple of days I am introducing myself to a young persons group. I would like to think of myself anyway as a positive peer roll model and as such when developing service user involvement I hope that I will, informally work in that roll. I cannot help thinking that 40 years ago I was a possibly transcient heavy drink and drug user. Unfortunately the seeds were set back then for a lifetime of on and off drug and alcohol abuse. I was in my fifties before I finally got into recovery. I had tried treatment unsuccessfully before that you understand.
So I will also be taking the recovery message with me. It is something that I cant help these days.
I sincerely hope that in the future that recovery communities will be the norm in each area. I believe that introducing young people to practical recovery support groups and helping them to be a part will be invaluable to them in the future because for many it will be a lifelong battle, and that is a long fight, for some it will take several attempts. In the future though, hopefully when they think of ‘getting straight’ from whatever, they will then first and formost think of getting in touch with their peers in recovery, even before the treatment services, which I believe will allways be a part, albiet a brief episode of many, (but not all) peoples recovery.
I am glad you did this blog as I have to admit to being a little unsure of the make up of young peoples services and this has given me a little more insight.
One thing it cant do however is stop me from feeling nervous about it! like yourself I am a father of 3 and delivered a ‘health and safety’ harm reduction message to my now grown up and well adjusted children knowing that they were more than likley to experiment. This is different. I have talked to many adult groups and individuals but as I said for whatever reason I really am nervous.
Thanks Melody, I think that your bringing a the young persons perspective to recovery will be of great value.
Thank you people for your comments, what a wonderful way of having a meaningful conversation with people this is!
What I should have said too in my blog is that we in young people services have so much to learn from you too.
John, your comment came just as I was thinking, was I wrong to describe some young peoples drug use as transient? As you say, you yourself went through episodes of heavy drug use which sowed the seeds of future abuse. The difficulty I find working with young people is, can we identify those at higher risk from those who are sailing through episodes of self sort oblivion, and does it, should it make a difference to how we work with them?
I know that I have always worked in an holistic way with all the young people I have worked with. For me, I am rarely interested beyond ‘assessment’ what drugs or how much (other than obvious safety issues) that a young person uses. I am more concerned with the reasons they may use and that their social environment and being, is as caring and supportive as it can be…. So as that when and if they want to make changes those changes are more sustainable. I think that’s why I don’t use the word recovery with young people… but I do talk about changes to what ever level they can manage. I think my concern with using the word recovery with young people is the same concern that I have with the word addict! This word used with young people in plants in their heads at far too early an age that they are powerless and have no control… and at 14 and 15, they do, and their drug use may be simply an episode….. dare I say for some a right of passage!
I would love to hear from you guys….Martin, John and others. Would earlier interventions have helped… How would you have responded to the concept of recovery, but also, would you have listened then?
Good luck John with your work in young peoples services …. The one thing I would caution you about …. Is that it is my experience that each generation think they invented this themselves! And therefore how they use, and what they use is different (not) to anything that went before … in other words they can be little smart arses!!! But that’s why I love working and learning from them.
there is very little black or white thinking on here you will be pleased to know. Welcome and look forward to hearing more from you x
Melody, you asked if early intervention would have helped and the concept of recovery, for me back in late 60,s and 70,s there just was not the services that there are for the young today.
So I just do not know how I would have taken to it all. For me! the more i did – the more “I BECAME LABELLED”
I hope that makes sense.
Melody,
Nice blog. As a young person in recovery, I must say I did scoff at your assertion that young people’s using is ‘prodominently transient’! Not the young people I know, who become middle aged if they’re lucky, dying long before if they’re not.
I used from age 12 to 22. It only took ten years, eight of which I was daily using, for my body to start to say ‘you’re killing yourself’. At age 17, I was dependant and was admitted to hospital. Indeed, I was following in the footsteps of my grandfather who died at 52 of Korsakoff’s (his use as a young person wasn’t transient either!).
I was in rehab, then a psychiatric hospital. They too adopted a ‘harm reduction’ approach. For me, it was a joke. I’m an addict: I’ll always want more. Without exception, the grass is always greener…
I know people who are around my age who do misuse drugs. They’re maybe not addicts (yet) and to that end, I wholeheartedly agree with principle of harm reduction. Simply because they haven’t yet lost everything (yet) (they’re eligible too though). But, I also feel that young like me, who drunk to near death, regularly overdosed, and become an utter nightmare to the good people at the NHS, that sobriety is the only option. If you told me today that I could take no more than 10 vallies, and no more than two pints, I’d think you’re more insane than me. Trust me, I’ve lied to myself long enough!
There isn’t just one solution out there for users/ex-users. But I’ve found my solution. For today, at least.
Keiran
Thank You Keiran so much for your comment, it is so helpful to me in an area that I struggle daily with… I say thank you, but also sod you…. Cos I spent most of the night thinking about what you’d said!!!!! And agonising, have I been dismissive? Have I got it wrong too many times? Have I wrongly assessed?!! Ah! It’s a mine field and your story illustrates perfectly why we have to be so vigilant.
I ‘think’ Keiran that there are several issues here. One is social perceptions, fears and concerns about both youth and of drugs, this leads to a culture of fear amongst parents, schools and others, which manifests itself in a way that sees every young person who tries, gets caught or is experimenting with drugs… getting referred to a drugs agency (I include alcohol in all this) and I’m not suggesting that this is a bad thing, because early intervention of any kind is better than none. Many of these referrals are instigated by parents, who maybe found a roach in a childs bedroom and are fearful that in days or weeks their child will have needles and an addiction. So much of our early work with young people and families, is allaying these concerns, in a sense assuring Mums and Dads that this is not a path writ in stone, and also trying to ensure that these early experiments (that they may be) are not conjured up by others to be a self fulfilled prophesy.
However it is the next stage that I think is the most difficult to assess.
IF the young person is using, experimentally, recreationally or as a rebellion will they respond to interventions more than harm reduction? Are they ready to be theraped? Will they laugh in the face of sobriety? When all around them they see drug use, social recreationally and even ceremoniously? For me the danger here is that if we don’t respond in a way that is acceptable for them .. we may lose them and then when and if they do develop more of a problem in their use, they wont come back! Which for me is a greater danger.
But clearly as you have illustrated, these if you will softly softly approaches are not enough for those young people who are already on a destructive pathway. One way that we can identify, these more ‘at risk’ young people, is comprehensive assessments, that should include family history, emotional well being and far more about the reasons a person uses and the drug cultures that they are in.
I know that when we have come across young people who are clearly NOT using in the ways I have previously said about, an expression I hear a lot is they can’t be engaged, they cant be thereped and or treated because they are not ready!!!! And I think it is here we (definitely me) have most to learn, because what we don’t do enough of is enabling that person to move into a place where they will be ready… d’ya know what I mean?… I think because we think it has to come from them… they have to somehow magically and suddenly one day say and acknowledge that they need help, that they are ready for more intensive interventions… but we wait for them to say it!!!! And maybe there’s more we can do to move them to a place where they can say that, or begin to recognise that.
I don’t want to go on forever Keiran, I just wanted you to know that I have listened and thought extensively about what you have said and your very honest critique and I will personally continue to ‘try’ and get it right.
I am learning so much from this website! (when my dongle allows connection for more than 5 mins!)
