OUR
STRATEGIES

Healthy Blood Healthy Body developed five Aboriginal-led and co-designed consumer strategies using a participatory approach.

Strategies we have used to enhance the sustainability of the project have included:

Guidance from the Co-design Working Group and Aboriginal Advisory Group established during exploratory research.
Building on best practice guides for Aboriginal health promotion and existing initiatives for alcohol and other drug harm reduction with established identity and branding, to maximise shared resources, impact and sustainability.
Building Aboriginal community capacity related to harm reduction.

Find out more about our strategies below.

CULTURAL SAFETY

Increasing cultural safety and security of NSPs. Healthy Blood Healthy Body conducted yarns with consumers to understand what makes services culturally safe. A scoping review was conducted to search for examples demonstrating cultural competence in service delivery. Findings were used to develop resources to support services to enhance cultural safety and security.

Community education and awareness campaign about harm reduction. The campaign was co-developed with Aboriginal community members, Elders, people who inject drugs and staff, and targets the broader Aboriginal community and Aboriginal health professionals in the Perth metropolitan region, to raise awareness about harm reduction and the role of NSPs.

COMMUNITY EDUCATION

Peer referral program pilot. The pilot evaluated an incentives model offering a cash payment to consumers who accessed the NSP for blood-borne virus testing. An Aboriginal Peer Worker was employed and trained to coordinate the program pilot and supervise volunteer peer educators to share harm reduction knowledge and raise awareness of NSPs with other Aboriginal consumers.

PEER
REFERRAL

HOLISTIC SERVICES

Towards a holistic service model. The service system for Aboriginal people who inject drugs with complex needs is not well integrated and may not meet their needs. Healthy Blood Healthy Body facilitated consultation between NSP service providers, consumers and other collaborators towards building a more holistic, consumer-centric and integrated service system. A review of the research evidence in Australia identified benefits and limitations of different NSP models.

SERVICE AVAILABILITY

Exploring the feasibility of increasing NSP service availability. Findings from exploratory research indicated demand for increased NSP service availability. Healthy Blood Healthy Body conducted a survey to explore attitudes to harm reduction for injecting drug use among organisations that provide health and related services to Aboriginal peoples who inject drugs in Boorloo. We also examined available data including occasions of service, equipment distribution, notification data for blood-borne viruses, and grey literature to explore the feasibility of additional mobile, outreach and after-hours services.