My 1st 48 hours out - continuity of care (note: project sections under development!)

Overdose is one of the most serious challenging risk that people using drugs face. Especially after release from prison or hospitalisation they face an serious increased risk of overdosing. Naloxon is a safe antidote and highly effective intervention to an opioid overdose that can easily be administered by lay people.

The article "Power in a bottle: expanding Naloxon access" decribes various ways to increase the availability and access to the life saving medication Naloxon.

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Naloxone-on-Release (Overdose Prevention) - a free e-learning course

This free course is a product of the project “My first 48 hours out – comprehensive approaches to pre and post-prison release interventions for drug users in the criminal justice system”.

It online course gives participants the opportunity to analyse key aspects of drug-related deaths provision upon release from prison and other custodial settings, learn how to prevent an opiate overdose and explains what to do in the case of witnessing an opiate overdose. By the end of the course, participants will also have an understanding of the opiate overdose reversal medication naloxone, where to obtain a kit and how to utilise it in the case of an overdose.

This course is relevant to prison doctors, prison health care workers, NGOs, people who come into contact with people who use drugs, GPs, nurses, teachers, police, housing workers and social workers and mental health workers.

The objective of this course is to assist in the reduction of opioid-related mortality within the first few weeks following prison release. Specifically, it seeks to:

  • increase the availability of naloxone to people likely to witness an overdose when they are released from prison
  • increase awareness of the identification of the signs and symptoms of an overdose and equip people with the skills to respond effectively.

Click here to start learning!

There is limited research on overdosis and Naloxone interventions in prison settings. A good resource from the UK describing a randomised control pilot trial on Naloxone after release is from Mahesh Parmar et al, 2016.
The study adds research-based findings on the growing consensus that take-home Naloxon at prison release can prevent prevent overdose deaths and that the intervention is a significant opportunity to prevent overdose among PWID.

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A usefull training manual is published by EHRN in 2014, The elalborte training manual written by Danny Morris and Gill Bradbury gives a broad overview of overdose prevention programming upon release in prison. The manual includes different modules and sessions that can be adjusted tot he local context. The comprehensive manual also includes templates, resources and PPT for the training.

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NEW! Comics book 'My First 48 Hours Out or how naloxone saved my life'- a visual aid for to post-prison release interventions for drug users.

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Guidelines for naloxone provision upon release from prison and other custodial settings - a hands-on toolkit for policy makers and practitioners on how to set up and run naloxone programmes for overdose prevention upon release from prison and other custodial settings.

The toolkit aim at providing hands-on recommendations for policy makers and practitioners from prison health services on how to promote, initiate and manage interventions related to overdose prevention through naloxone programs and how to organise related training and capacity building.

Kirsten Horsburgh from the Scottish Drugs Forum, author of the guidelines, analysed information and literature available from a number of European countries as well as relying on the Scottish national naloxone programme experience, with particular reference to interventions focusing on people leaving prison.

The French version of this toolkit is available here: Naloxone à la sortie de prison. Recommandations pour la mise à disposition de la naloxone à la sortie de prison et des autres lieux de privation de liberté.

The list of naloxone-related online resources, is growing fast. Currently, you can find over 20 entries, all in English language.

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