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Author: Nigel Brunsdon

Ketamine – Living in dreams, coping with realities

Written by Nigel Brunsdon on . Posted in Training.

Ketamine is an atypical and complex drug that impacts on whole body system. Peers describe the sense of hopelessness that comes from being turned away from different services because their needs are defined as too complex for a single speciality. Coact has engaged the pioneering peer initiatives on ketamine and a new generation of lived experience drugs and youth workers to form the Ketamine Peer Advisory Group (K-PAG).

Multiple generations of people who use ketamine describe needing to train their workers to receive help with ketamine. Coact and K-PAG understand the insights that come from lived experience. Coact’s training model provides participants with the chance to gather technical learning and strengthen good practice through a dialogue with lived experience trainers. We offer three different models of training that seeks to address the complexity of ketamine and the need to bring different specialities together in an integrated model of care.

Training Models

Ketamine Area Learning and Development Event
A one-day training event for 40 – 50 participants. It provides a chance for stakeholders in an area system to come together to gather and share learning on ketamine. This course is designed for practitioners and peer workers from drug and alcohol services, young people’s drug services, youth services, general practice, accident and emergency, urology, psychiatry, public health and commissioning. Participants learn together while negotiating how to strengthen care pathways, drugs work, and peer support.

Ketamine Drug Service Training
A one-day training event for 20 – 30 drug and alcohol practitioners and peer workers. The course is focussed on developing technical learning to support the development of assessment skills, the delivery of good practice, and strengthening care pathways in drug services. This course model focusses on the drug and alcohol workforce and supports them to understand and plan how to work with the wider healthcare system to strengthen care pathways and develop an integrated response.

Ketamine – Technical Support Sessions
Two hour practice development sessions on ketamine. Delivered as two hour video conference training sessions. One-hour interactive presentation with plenary exercises and discussions. One-hour case studies or experiential learning activities in break out groups. Take home practice tools.

  • Session 1 – ketamine harm reduction and the ketamine health check
  • Session 2 – k-cramps – prevention, self-management and treatment
  • Session 3 – ketamine bladder syndrome – prevention, self-management and treatment

An Introduction To Motivational Interviewing

Written by Nigel Brunsdon on . Posted in Training.

Making changes in any aspect of your life can be really hard – even when we know our behaviour is causing us harm. Motivational Interviewing is a conversation that supports people to make difficult changes to their lifestyle or behaviour, to feel empowered, listened to and included in their own care.

Motivational Interviewing is suitable for those working in any health and social care setting and any population group including inpatient settings, primary care, education, criminal justice, end of life care, mental health and any area where practitioners support people to make good choices for them. With the release the Ten Year Plan for Health in 2024, Motivational Interviewing can actively support a shift from treatment to prevention, offering personalised care, closer to home addressing what matters most to patients and service users.

The principals and skills you will learn on this introductory course will be useful in a wide range of conversations. MI is a method of communication rather than an intervention so if we talk to people and, more importantly, listen to people, this will be helpful. It is not about being a subject expert but being there to support our service users in an atmosphere of acceptance and compassion.

Learning Objectives

  • To use the skills and values of Motivational Interviewing to provide a supportive and accepting environment for working with service users
  • To support service users to take responsibility for their own situation and work together to determine any plans / goals
  • To support service users when they are stuck, ambivalence is high and confidence is low
  • Be able to draw on a range of skills and techniques which will complement our existing communication styles
  • To be able to provide service users with challenge without confrontation and work with resistance

Paul Sullivan

Written by Nigel Brunsdon on . Posted in Trainers.

Paul Sullivan has worked in health and social care since 1999. Specialising in lifestyle and behaviour change, he spent many years working in treatment services for drug and alcohol users in South Essex and then West Yorkshire. In various roles Paul has experience working in a range of health care settings including young people’s services, specialist drug treatment, needle and syringe exchange, primary and secondary care and Mental Health Trusts.

Paul has been teaching Motivational Interviewing for over 15 years with groups as diverse as nursing and healthcare support, mental health practitioners, HM Prison services, housing and social care services and many others.

In 2015, Paul became a member of the International Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers.

Andrew Bennett

Written by Nigel Brunsdon on . Posted in Trainers.

A former youth worker and drug worker, Andrew was the Director at HIT from 1994 to 2006. During the last decade Andrew was involved in the National ACE Approach to Policing Vulnerability Programme in Wales.

He has developed ACE aware and trauma-informed approaches including routine enquiry initiatives in Wales and Ireland. Andrew was the Public Health lead at the Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership from January 2022 to April 2025.

Drugs, adversity and trauma: making the case for routine enquiry

Written by Nigel Brunsdon on . Posted in Training.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma are prevalent in the lives of people seeking help with substance-related problems. The use of alcohol and other drugs is often a form of self-medication, which may relieve prolong and extreme short term. Working in a trauma-informed way will enable substance misuse services to reach out and support hard to engage vulnerable people who use substances and reverse the harm from trauma, stigma and substance use.

But are we doing enough? Do we sometimes focus on the symptoms instead of the cause? Research shows that there are often many years between adverse events and disclosure. The reasons for this include ‘nobody asked’ and ‘I was not believed’. Consequently, it’s important that drug workers are confident and competent to ask about adversity in a safe, respectful and effective way.

Learning Objectives

  • To improve knowledge about the nature and extent of ACEs.
  • To understand how trauma can have adverse effects on behaviours, emotions and lifelong opportunities including substance use.
  • To understand the key components of a trauma and ACE informed approach.
  • To consider the importance, relevance and feasibility of routinely asking about the causes of trauma.

Neurodivergence And Substance Use

Written by Nigel Brunsdon on . Posted in Articles.

HIT Article

HIT Article

Guest article from Jay Cooper

One of our plans for the 2024 HIT Hot Topics conference was to have a session on neurodivergence and its intersection with substance use. Ultimately, that session never happened because of a mix of speaker ideas falling through and us already having a large number of speakers booked on other topics. (Don’t worry, you will see that session one day.) Part of our planning for that session was a commissioned article from HIT Hot Topics regular Jay Cooper. You can read that article below (collected in four parts).

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