Sexual Health
County Durham DAAT, in conjunction with a wide range of partners, is intending to further develop sexual health provision for service users within the county. In some parts of the county, County Durham Primary Care Trust offers an outreach contraception service called "Clinic in a Box", which provides specialist clinics within drug treatment centres as well as conducting domiciliary visits. This service will soon be able to offer Genito Urinary outreach in addition to the above.
There are concerns that women are under-represented in their access to treatment services, with only 25% of service users accessing these services being women. We are investigating this with a view to attracting more women into treatment. Anecdotally, we know that there are women who do not attend treatment centres due to a variety of issues e.g. childcare may be an issue; women may be reluctant to come forward for treatment for fear of social services involvement, and they may believe that "treatment" always means complete cessation of drugs, rather than the wider range of help available e.g. harm minimisation.
We are making contact with centres and agencies that are not drug or alcohol specific to try to ‘map’ what services could be provided/are needed and what is attractive to women. It may be that more suitable services are needed in the existing treatment centres and that these services could expand outreach provision, similar to the approach developed with the outreach contraception services.
Drugs Information & Advice
Other North East DA(A)Ts
Service Users
Parents & Carers
Treatment Centres
Harm Minimisation Services
