Five Years of Peers
CNP Peers reflect
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Derived from artwork by pikisuperstar / Freepik
mong its other services, Hepatitis SA runs four Clean Needle Program (CNP) sites in Adelaide, at Hackney, Noarlunga, Port Adelaide, and Salisbury. Our CNP peer educators also attend rostered sessions at other sites at various times during the week. In late 2019, we celebrated this program’s fifth successful year, which would have been impossible without the hard work and dedication of our peer educators, who have personal experience and knowledge of injecting drug use and also have up-to-date knowledge on hepatitis B, hepatitis C and other bloodborne viruses. We asked some of our peer educators to reflect on how they came to the job, and what rewards they find in it.
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What first made you want to be a peer worker at Hepatitis SA? PENNI: I first wanted to be a peer worker at Hep SA when they adopted CNP management—due to the focus on blood-borne viruses, this made sense. I was already familiar with the roles of CNP operator and peer educator, really enjoyed and felt fulfilled in the position, and felt an affinity for the work and the clients. I wanted to continue my existing employment as a CNP peer along with my existing part-time peer educator role with HepSA, so I was fortunate that I could perform both roles on a part time basis, plus the subject matter overlapped, permitting me to engage
HEPATITIS SA COMMUNITY NEWS 85 • April 2020
in both CNP and HCV peer education work. I could bring skills from either specific role to help the other. MARGIE: I became a peer worker because I wanted to help drug users get the correct information about how to use drugs and do the least amount of damage to your body and mind while doing it. I started using in the 1980s, when the only information came from other users. There were no CNPs, no Google, so you learned from others. We bought equipment from medical supplies shops. We bought glass barrels called Blue Ladies, and boxes of tips. There was no swabbing that I can remember, and we used the tips over and over
