Harm Reduction

HRPWs promote the health and well- being of people who use drugs.This document is intended to serve as a framework for the development of the peer workforce across a variety of organisations that work with the community of people who use drugs. This Framework seeks to inform peer workers, their employers, funders, other stakeholders, and the wider Victorian community about HRPWs. This includes the values and principles of harm reduction, as well as the skills, experience, and knowledge of HRPWs that are necessary to perform their roles. The document outlines the scope of practice for HRPWs; several appendices on the types of organisations likely to employ HRPWs; and a list of potential roles in which they may be employed.

Established in 2022-24, the Lived and Living Experience Workforces (LLEW) development program supported existing or developing new projects to realise authorised, supported and sustainable LLEWs in public mental health and AOD services.

The program was informed by and seeks to build on the many decades of activism and advocacy by the mental health consumer workforce, AOD consumer workforce, mental health family/carer workforce, and AOD family/carer workforce, people with lived and living experience of trauma, mental health challenges, suicide, substance use, and their families, carers, and supporters, advocates, and allies. The program also recognises the unique needs and perspectives within individual LLEW disciplines as well as between them. The implication of this is that while some agendas are shared/common among LLEWs, this diversity needs to be acknowledged and supported through the program.

Ultimately, this work has validated the work that the drug using community had already been doing for over more than four decades.