The Project 6 Podcast

May 29 2024

The Project 6 Podcast artwork

The Project 6 Podcast is all about exploring ways we can create more choice and opportunity for people who want to access support for alcohol and other drug use. How can services work in partnership better? What role should lived experience play in shaping support? How can we change public perceptions of substance use and how can we challenge the stigma so often behind the barriers people face? We, Project 6 are a drug and alcohol charity working in Yorkshire. Our work means we have some fascinating discussions with amazing people working to improve our sector, from researchers to other inspirational organisations and the people who use our services. We wanted to capture some of these conversations and ask what better might look like.

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Danny Ahmed - Diamorphine in Middlesbrough

May 29 2024 11 mins

Danny Ahmed shares about a pioneering project, that between 2019 and 2022 worked with people using opiates to provide them with medical-grade heroin in Middlesbrough. This intervention, which allows people access to an uncontaminated and reliable supply of substances is often discussed as the biggest change we could take to reduce the harms experienced by people who use drugs. Dann

Jenny Scott - They had the knowledge

May 22 2024 10 mins

Jenny Scott is a researcher and pharmacist prescriber who has been working recently on a project codesigning solutions to improve the numbers of people carrying naloxone (a drug that reverses opioid overdose) in rural Somerset. She shares about the process of working alongside people with living experience to create solutions, as well as some of the barriers the project experienced

George Charlton - We Are LUV

May 15 2024 10 mins

This time George Charlton joins us on our journey exploring what we mean by harm reduction when it comes to alcohol and other drugs.George is an activist, trainer, campigner and worked with people who use drugs for over 20 years. In this episode he shares about We are LUV, a project creating peer-led groups to lead on research and design of local and national services. He describes

Deb Hussey- Lived and Living Experience

May 08 2024 10 mins

Deb Hussey has worked in harm reduction services for over 10 years. She speaks about the changes to drug policy and commissioning that meant harm reduction as an ethos was lost from our treatment services. She explores why it's important to distinguish between 'lived' and 'living' experiences when it comes to co-designing support.

Anna Millington - Good Mothers Can Use Drugs

May 01 2024 10 mins

Since Anna started the Mother 2 Mother network in the North-East of England, the mothers she works with have helped redesign injecting equipment and created an anti-stigma campaign that has received international recognition. Anna talks about why she believes harm reduction services aren't currently open to everyone and what we need to do about that.

Jan Mayor - That's not fair

Apr 24 2024 11 mins

Jan Mayor came to harm reduction from her experiences of campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights and seeing the dehumanizing treatment of gay men with HIV and people who inject drugs. Now working as Innovation and Practice lead for Turning Point Scotland, she develops ideas and approaches that promote the rights of people who use drugs through projects that ensure they have access to the lev

Trailer for Series 2

Apr 24 2024 2 mins

We're back for series 2! This time we're speaking to people working across the alcohol and other drugs sector about all things harm reduction. We'll be hearing about innovative approaches to reducing the physical and social harm associated with drug use and finding out the ideas that underpin it. If you believe in choice, opportunity, and respect for people people using alcohol and

Ideas Conference: Achieving a balanced sector ecosystem

Jul 12 2023 16 mins

For the final episode of the series, we take one last trip to the Ideas Conference 2023. Listen to an abridged version of the second panel discussion on the day, “Achieving a balanced sector ecosystem". The new drug strategy asks us to collaborate and work in partnership as a priority. So we will hear from an area that has done just that and has built its own ecosystem. The panel

Ideas Conference: Harm Reduction, Recovery and Human Rights

Jul 05 2023 15 mins

Listen to an abridged version of a panel discussion that took place at this the Project 6 Ideas Conference 2023, “Harm Reduction, Recovery and Human Rights”. With 10 years of disinvestment and budgets slashed, the panel made up of harm reductionists, treatment providers and recovery advocates consider how we overcome that polarity between the two approaches, to create solidarit

Sounds of the Ideas Conference

Jun 27 2023 17 mins

The first part of 3 episodes recorded at the Project 6 Ideas Conference 2023. This episode, listen to a snapshot of the day including conversations, views and ideas shared across the conference.