Fuse Initiatives- Harm Reduction Peer Workforce Protection & Unity

Updated: Nov 30

Fuse Initiatives achieved a massive amount of work over the 23-24 financial year. We were able to continue to expand the Fuse Network, with a total of 25 members participating from external organisations and 7 internal staff participating. .

Members join us from numerous roles including health promotion, street-based assertive outreach, Needle and Syringe Programs, Overdose Response and education, Naloxone distribution and the Party Project.

Members are from a total of 8 community-based organisations, including HRvic.

The majority of our members work in AOD and in harm reduction programs of mainstream community health organisations, however several do work within clinical teams in hospitals.

Fuse Initiatives has completed the development of several new tools and training that organisations can access to improve their service delivery and provide safer workplaces for Harm Reduction Peer Workers.

These include a comprehensive Organisational Readiness Package, which aims to determine whether an organisation is sufficiently prepared to employ HRPWs and if not, what supports can be offered by Fuse Initiatives to enable them to become ready.

Training has also been developed to provide non-peer colleagues with the tools to successfully work alongside peer (living/lived experience) colleagues.

Peer Worker Training has also been developed to ensure that new and existing Harm Reduction Peer Workers get the best introduction to the work as well as providing ongoing career development and progression.

To date 3 organisations have made contact with Fuse Initiatives requesting that we present training and organisational readiness to their staff.

The Fuse Initiatives team provided 140 support interventions to HRPWs.

Themes included managing work/life balance, self-care, peer work practices and best practice client work, role clarity, managing workplace expectations, scope of practice, managing ego and workplace behaviours, organisational policy and practice reviews with Team Leaders- best practice for supporting HRPWs, peer-led project development, managing dual relationships, dealing with workplace relationships, balancing substance use with work, supporting workforce re: community members deaths , acting as support person for workers back to work plan from Workcover, and managing negative impact of stigma & discrimination.

Similarly, the team delivered a total of 28 sessions of monthly discipline specific external supervision to HRPWs with similar themes as the support interventions.

Discipline Specific Position Descriptions for Peer Workers

We also developed a bank of discipline-specific position descriptions, which were submitted to the Department of Health on 30th June 2024, alongside a Discipline-Specific Framework for Harm Reduction Peer Work.

We anticipate that the department will launch these resources to the wider sector in October/November. So far we have received one inquiry for support to develop appropriate position descriptions.

The Fuse Initiatives team has collaborated extensively on numerous workforce development projects including the Lived and Living Experience Educator Community of Practice, the development of the discipline-specific position descriptions, the discipline-specific frameworks and non-LLEW specific training.

Partners in this work included the Department of Health, Sharc, Tandem and the CLEW (Carer Lived Experience Workforce), VIMIAC, the Centre for Mental Health Nursing and the Centre for Mental Health Learning. We participated in an average of 10 hours in collaborative meetings with our partners to achieve a cohesive suite of documents across the following disciplines:

Harm Reduction, AOD Treatment/Recovery Consumer, AOD Family/Supporter, Mental Health Consumer and Mental Health Family/Carer workforces.