The areas which CIN's services cover falls into three main categories. These are;
1. The provision of an information and education service for intravenous drug users with an emphasis on minimizing potentional harm as a result of injecting.
This covers our office and the services that are provided from the office space. The office is open for 40 hours per week. Initially the hours of operation are be 10am - 6pm Mon-Fri, but these hours will change in response to our member/clients needs. There will education sessions, workshops and support groups running out of the CIN office.
Our newsletter (yet to be named will be published quarterly, full of information of relevance to the drug users of Canberra.
We provide and receive referrals to/from other agencies, and act as advocates for client/members in dealings with bureaucrats, police, courts, medical practioners and others.
We lobby for drug law reform, in line with our philosophy of reducing harm to individuals who choose to use drugs.
2. The provision of a needle and syringe exchange program outlet.
The CIN needle and syringe exchange is based at our office (Room G12, Griffin Centre, Canberra City), however, we do provide needle exchange on *Outreach (see below) also.
We collect data such as gender, age and a code name from the client/members who use our service, to enable policy development in the area of NESP.
We provide this equipment in a non-judgemental manner, and while we provide information on a number of health issues and investigate any issue that our client/members request, we do not intervene inappropriately in their personal lives.
All our NESP staff will be trained and licensed to distribute injecting equipment.
3. The provision of a health information and education service through an outreach service.
The outreach service will be conducted from various regional outlets twice per week. It is yet to be decided exactly where outreach officers will target.
On outreach client/members will be given information and education around safe injecting practises; safer sex; basic good health information such as nutrition and excercise; liver care, especially for people with hepatitis; caring for children; legal issues; etc. We will have guest speakers from time to time, such as doctors or lawyers so that client/members can have the opportunity to question these professionals directly.
A light lunch or morning/afternoon tea is provided with our outreach sessions. We find this attracts clients and makes for a pleasant informal atmosphere.
We also will be undertaking to enter into joint projects with other health services in the region. Examples of this are working with the AIDS Action Council of the ACT on a project aimed at gay men who inject drugs, or a project with Workers In Sex Employment in the ACT, on sex workers who inject drugs. We have found that all other AIDS services have been very supportive of CIN and our efforts to date to provide drug users with appropriate health care information.
