Headspace in Warrnambool and Brophy Family and Youth Services have teamed with the Pennington Institute to tackle the issues caused by ice.
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On Friday, Pennington Institute project leader Crios O’Mahony delivered a training session to Brophy and Heaspace staff.
Mr O’Mahony said the session was aimed at educating staff about the growing trend of the use of needles to take ice.
He said it would look at the Needle and Syringe Program (NSP) that Brophy is part of delivering.
This program allows drug users to drop off used needles, which are disposed of safely, and collect clean ones.
“This training and these resources will help workers to better understand ice use,” Mr O’Mahony said.
“We also discussed practical strategies for meeting the needs of NSP clients.
“Country areas can miss out on this kind of training which often happens in bigger cities.
‘We believe that workers in regional areas will benefit from this project and we’re happy to be able to deliver this training directly to them.”
Practice manger for Warrnambool Headspace Louisa Radley said the session was valuable.
She said it delivered some important messages.
“It was really important for our administration staff that are the first port of call for NSP clients,” Ms Radley said.
“We can get rid of used needles safely and deliver new ones so our NSP is well used. The amount of ice users accessing the program is on the climb so was great to get some training on what type of behaviour we can expect.”
