The Outer Hebrides Alcohol & Drug Partnership recently held a partnership event with service providers and service users on how to support and engage with individuals and their families who are furthest away from services, especially those who are vulnerable and disadvantaged and those who live in more remote and rural areas.  The feedback from the day will be used to assist the OHADP when updating and developing the local strategy.

The event took place in the Harris Hotel, Tarbert on 26th April 2019, enabling those across the islands to come together.  Presentation topics included the new Scottish Government Strategy ‘Rights, Respect and Recovery’, the local picture in relation to alcohol and drug issues and a series of snapshots from the emergency services about how alcohol and drugs feature in their services and priorities. Participants were able to join small group discussions about how service providers can reach out to those furthest from services or that are hard to engage and what they saw as the Outer Hebrides priorities in relation to alcohol and drug issues.

The highlight of the day was a presentation from the guest speaker, Michaela Jones, National Lived Experience Development Officer at the Scottish Recovery Consortium (SRC) who spoke about the SRC, the role of Lived Experience, and Recovery Advocacy and gave an overview of the work which is building recovery communities across Scotland.

The feedback from the day was very positive and included “An excellent and informative day. Format was good. It was great to liaise with other agencies” and “It was great to hear from all the speakers and the workshops were very helpful too”.