YES: Michael Linnell, director of communications, Lifeline Project
Drug services rarely have the resources to do real outreach or development work with young people: we only target those with "a problem". Services such as ours get too tied up with youth justice clients and carrying caseloads to even think about the less vulnerable. This also means the perception of drug services becomes too closely associated with criminal justice and even less welcoming for young people.
There are plans to make information about accessing services more widely available and part of the basic personal, social and health education curriculum, but approaching a drug service can be very intimidating. One way we have tried to get around this is by having a presence in other settings and not going up to young people and saying: "Hi, I'm the drugs worker."
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