The Springtown area of Derry has high levels of drug and alcohol abuse. For their Level 1 BCPP project, Bradley’s Pharmacy partnered up with Dunluce Family Centre to work with a core group of 13 men and women. They hosted a ‘meet and greet’ with participants and identified what people wanted to hear more about. This then determined how the programme was structured.
Their project took place over six sessions and explored a range of health issues that included over the counter drug misuse, self-esteem and drug & alcohol use/misuse. Although this was the main focus, they also covered pharmacy services, heart health, prescription and OTC medication, stress, depression and self-esteem. Together they linked up with Drink Think, Aware Defeat Depression and Lifestart to enhance the learning for everyone involved.
The approach used was informal and included games, quizzes, one-to-one's, health checks and discussions to really get the chat going and help people to feel comfortable and relaxed.
The group thoroughly enjoyed the programme and participants formed great relationships with each other and the pharmacist. They are now more aware of services available to them and are more likely to turn to their pharmacist first. They have learned coping mechanisms for stress and the pharmacist felt that this was a great experience to get in to the community and work closely with local people.
Emma Devenney, the Pharmacist, said, “It was so rewarding to see the change in the participants over the 6 weeks. They really opened up and shared personal experiences and the positive feedback from them was an added bonus. One of the participants has even come to the pharmacy to avail of the smoking cessation programme. People were sad at the end of the programme and we wished that it could have lasted longer as there were so many issues that we wanted to focus on.”