The DruGS team has recently published an implementation guide to support healthcare workers to use the blood-borne viruses (BBV) and sexually transmissible infections (STI) stigma reduction toolkit.

In 2022 the team published the practice-ready stigma reduction toolkit designed to be used by individual healthcare professionals and services to tackle stigma and discrimination related to BBVs and STIs.

Building on this initial research, the Victorian Department of Health funded a pilot project to examine the barriers and enablers that shape how the toolkit is used in busy healthcare services. Partnering with Your Community Health, a large community healthcare service based in Melbourne, Victoria, the insights from the pilot informed the development of the implementation guide.

While piloting the toolkit in two programs at Your Community Health, the research team documented the overall pilot processes, experiences and progress in order to understand the usability of the toolkit and identify the service-level factors that enabled and challenged its use.

Another component of the project was an online workshop for the Victorian healthcare sector. The workshop was designed to promote awareness of these resources and to provide participants with information and inspiration to implement toolkit strategies in their own professional contexts. Attended by over 100 participants including clinicians, policy makers, and health service managers, the workshop included presentations from project team members and collaborative activities. One of the highlights of the workshop was a panel discussion with representatives from BBV and STI peer-led community organisations: Lien Tran (Hepatitis B Voices Australia); Sione Crawford (Harm Reduction Victoria); Richard Keane (Living Positive Victoria) and; Kirsty Machon (Positive Women Victoria). Facilitated by Dr Adrian Farrugia, the panel explored community perspectives on priority areas for stigma reduction in healthcare and ways that services can productively ally with people affected by BBVs and STIs. Professor Kate Seear closed the workshop with a presentation on the legal and policy reforms that can help address stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings. Workshop participants provided positive feedback, including for the emphasis on these broader issues:

Although the workshop and toolkit [are] primarily directed at service delivery [it was] very useful to ensure strategies are embedded in government, policy etc. [The workshop was an] excellent reminder of what happens at client level […] Thank you for the opportunity to attend.

Stigma reduction resources available free

The implementation project has produced a suite of resources to support healthcare services implement strategies in the BBV and STI stigma-reduction toolkit:

1. The BBV and STI stigma-reduction toolkit.
2. The toolkit implementation guide, which offers practical advice and tools to plan and implement stigma reduction activities, including ways to overcome challenges, refine plans and track progress.
3. Three workshop videos exploring different aspects of the toolkit and lessons from the implementation pilot.

All these resources are available for free download.

Implementation workshop videos

Part 1 includes an overview of the toolkit and information about its development.

Part 2 includes a panel discussion with representatives from peer-led organisations about ways for healthcare services to approach allyship and build connections with people living with and affected by BBVs and STIs.

Part 3 includes lessons from the pilot and an agenda for legal and policy reform.

These implementation resources are all free to access and we hope that, alongside the toolkit, they provide healthcare services, individual professionals, and other relevant organisations with useful tools to help tackle stigma and create inclusive health services for all.