Publications

Professional profile of the outreach worker in harm reduction

16 September 2013

More or less ten years ago, a small group of professionals from APDES were confronted with a new arena of action: the streets, the “open scenes” where the drug users spent most of their time… Despite the experts naming these life scenarios “open scenes”, the communities living there were considered as “hidden populations”. And why was that?

Because they were rarely in contact with the health and social structures, never having an opportunity to see a doctor or to have a chat with a social worker. These were people never touched by the long arm of the social-sanitary system.

Unknown and abandoned to their fate, these were people wandering from street to street. So these professionals
were challenged with a new set of obstacles, experiences and ways of approach which were completely new. For the first time in their lives, these “open” settings exposed them to a new way of engaging with the communities, quite distant from the secure base of their desk at the office.

This book gives an answer to many of the questions that might be asked about what an outreach worker actually does, what attitudes he/she should acquire, and it gives a broad overview of the different activities, knowledge, skills and attitudes the professional outreach worker in harm reduction should know of and be aware of. A lot of work lies behind this extensive overview: it is not only about doing outreach, but also describes the importance of being able to form relationships with service users, and with other service providers, in order to support service users and to create opportunities for change.

People will find this E-Book useful when training new outreach workers, and it will help to create debate and reflection for the more experienced workers, thus becoming even better at doing their work.

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