Introduction
Hannah Boyle is the Women’s Centre Development and Service Lead for The Connect Hub, a service delivered by Simon Community Scotland, delivering support to people experiencing homelessness nationally. The Connect Hub provides a range of services ranging from drop-in multi-agency Hubs, residential supported accommodations, community and outreach support through the street outreach teams, and the UK’s first Managed Alcohol Programme.
Central to the approach is harm reduction – ensuring that people who use substances have access to what they need, when they need it. In practice, to meet people where they are, providing compassionate care that is responsive to their needs.
Please describe how your harm reduction services are tailored for women
Simon Community Scotland, it is recognised that women have specific needs and preferences related to their overall lives, and that support provided from any service should take into account a gendered perspective that is responsive, flexible, and centres their voice and expertise.
This is the approach delivered within The Connect Hub, a multi-agency community space providing information and advice to women experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The Connect Hub was designed and informed by women with expertise of homelessness and how a safe space for women should look, feel and operate. The Connect Hub model is built upon delivering trauma informed practice in a low-threshold, accessible environment. An integral part of this is to ensure that women feel safe in accessing services and work is actively undertaken to remove and minimise barriers. Within The Connect Hub, harm reduction is a founding principle. The Connect Hub provides the following:
- Access to safe injecting equipment available, alongside evidence-based harm reduction information.
- Sexual health products including condoms and lubricant.
- Naloxone supply and brief intervention training to respond to opioid overdose.
- On site blood borne virus testing.
- Support to engage with health services including drug treatment, on site sexual health services and blood borne virus outreach teams.
- Access to a range of regular educational group work programmes covering various elements of harm reduction, with a particular focus on ensuring women are aware of their rights in accessing services and treatment.
- Connect Hub has a focus on gender-based violence response.
What challenges do you face connecting women who use drugs with gender-based violence services?
The Connect Hub was intentionally developed to provide a space of security for women experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Each day, The Connect Hub supports women who are rough sleeping and living in temporary city centre accommodation. The levels of violence women experience both within intimate relationships and within the community is huge and something women are having to deal with daily. The Connect Hub provides a safe, nonjudgemental space for women to access a range of practical supports, including those which can assist women fleeing domestic abuse. These include food, support with travel, clothing, and access to digital connections to ensure women have a way of contacting services if required, or linkage with people that are important to them. In providing a space that is low threshold, staff are able move at the pace of each woman without expectation or the pressure to link in with statutory support until they are ready.
The Connect Hub recognise that women who use substances may face additional barriers in accessing support related to gender-based violence. The Connect Hub work closely alongside statutory services, third sector organisations and specialist agencies to strengthen partnerships and ensure that women have access to robust support and are aware of their options when exiting or navigating abusive relationships. The Connect Hub continue to connect women with agencies that may be of benefit to them – specifically relating to income maximisation and finances, as it is known that this can often tether women to their existing circumstances and make them feel unable to leave.
In addition to practical support, The Connect Hub offers a unique harm reduction digital app, ‘By My Side’, embedded with access to information related to substance use but also services that may be beneficial to women should they not want to seek direct support from services. Staff recognise that the
opportunities existing within the digital space should be as easy as possible for women to access information and support online, in order to create alternative pathways for women to find safe ways to navigate their current circumstances.
What organisations do you engage from other sectors and how you ensure these services are non-judgemental and client oriented?
The Connect Hub operates as a multi-agency space with partners delivering support on site on a regular
basis. This involves:
- Health, in particular sexual health, clinical harm reduction teams and optical health
- Financial advice, energy advice and welfare rights guidance
- Advocacy and legal guidance
During the development of The Connect Hub, women took an active role in identifying the key agencies
and support providers they felt were most appropriate to be based within the space. This community-led
approach ensured that women had ownership over who was invited in. In addition, women developed a
set of best practice standards for agencies delivering from the centre, that outline how they expect any service provider to operate within The Connect Hub and how they expect care to be delivered. This has enabled a transparency between Simon Community Scotland, the partners and most importantly, women, to continue to operate and evolve in the best interests of those accessing the space.
Thanks to the early development work alongside partners, all staff are mindful of how they bed into the space. Staff encourage all external partners to have a visible presence in The Connect Hub, utilising communal areas and in particular, the Community Room, to build relationships and establish connections with women. The hope is that this will allow providers to raise awareness of the support they can offer, as well as build and sustain trust for women who may find it difficult to access specific interventions. All providers remain accessible, visible and ready for when women feel ready to engage.
What advice do you have for newer group wishing to provide harm reduction led by women who use drugs?
The Connect Hub staff would encourage all groups working with women to ultimately be led by them in both the design and delivery of support or services, particularly those focused around harm reduction. When women are provided the opportunity to share what is meaningful to them and what they would find important within their care, services should be ready to respond and deliver. The Connect Hub team would advocate for the provision of harm reduction advice and equipment that takes into account the gendered perspective – including the contextual and social factors that impact women specifically when using substances.
To provide gendered support well, it is integral that women feel seen, valued and accepted. Delivering safe, inclusive women-only spaces is a huge part of this as is ensuring that women have access to spaces where they know they belong, are welcomed and have an active stake. Women should be listened to, consulted and continuously fed back to at all points of operations to ensure that their involvement is purposeful and truly aligning to the principles of co-production.
Part of this is not only through involvement, but creating tangible opportunities and spaces for women to step in and actively lead, based on their knowledge and expertise. This can look like different things. Previously the work has involved providing paid opportunities for women to engage in developing and designing resources, materials, and service models.
The Connect Hub staff would encourage any groups working with women who use substances to actively seek out and create opportunities for women to be heard. This includes actively outreaching to engage with new women or women who may be unknown to services.
