In this section

• Sheffield Approach
• Information and Education about
  Substances
• Substance Misuse - what
  constitutes a problem?
• Harm Reduction
• Roles and Responsibilities

Harm Reduction

We want to reduce the harm that substance use and misuse causes to the young people of Sheffield. For most young people this means encouraging them not to use substances.

However, we know that some young people will use substances as they grow up and we must acknowledge that simply telling these young people not to use substances may be ineffective. In fact, research tells us that in cases where young people already have some experience of using drugs or alcohol, taking a traditional 'just say no' approach is too simplistic and counterproductive.

Where young people are using substances we believe that we should make every effort to:

• advise them of the potential risks using credible information
• encourage them to take personal responsibility to reduce the harm their substance use causes to them and those around them
• make clear that the best way to reduce the risks is not to use substances at all

Harm reduction interventions can be simple or complex. Examples include:

• A learning mentor telling a 15 year old boy who is talking about drinking alcohol not to drink on an empty stomach and how to count how many units of alcohol he drinks.
• A youth offending officer educating a 14 year old about the risks of drink driving.
• A youth worker teaching a group of young women who use ecstasy that pills bought from the street will vary in content and purity due to the illegal way they are produced, so that the 'product' may be different every time even if it looks the same.
• A Connexions Personal Advisor educating a 16 year old user of cannabis about the way that cannabis affects short term memory, which makes revising for exams more difficult.
• A drugs worker providing a clean supply of sterile needles to an 18 year old who is injecting heroin, to reduce the risk of the young person contracting HIV or Hepatitis from sharing injecting equipment with other infected people.
• A nurse advising an injecting user about safer injecting techniques to reduce the risks of abcesses, blood clots and collapsed veins.