National Collaborative: Community Conversation

Circle hosted a “Community Conversation” on behalf of the National Collaborative initiative. This initiative is giving families (as well as professionals) the opportunity to voice their views about substance use services. To do this successfully, the National Collaborative wanted to hear from people who had been affected by substance use and what their views were on what was going well, what needed to change and what families wanted services to look like.

We chatted with our families about their experiences of services and whether these services were doing a good job at helping people. Our families identified key areas where action is needed to effectively improve these services.

To read more about what our families said about these services, see more information here.


Conversations for Change

Words shared by families with lived experience, contributions by peer support workers and professionals, reflecting the challenging and ever-changing journey of living with the effects of a loved one’s substance use and how East Lothian services can best support and care for those families.

Who is this resource for?
  • Families affected by a loved one’s substance use who want to know their rights to accessing services and support.
  • Professionals and services to consider what changes could be made in their practice, to further help families affected by substance use by identifying and actively promoting their rights and access to the services they need.

This resource sets out to give space to the words of families and to the views of services and become the conduit to a conversation that, in the future, will be taken forward to make the changes that need to happen on local and strategic levels to help more families in East Lothian.

For any enquiries regarding this resource, please contact Angela Gentile, Project Manager East Lothian: angela.gentile@circle.scot.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to watch a video of a conversation between a Young Person and a Family Outreach Worker.