Building AOD Capacity in Non-Specialist Services: A Naloxone Training Approach
Tracks
Prince Room - In-Person & Virtual
| Wednesday, May 27, 2026 |
| 2:45 PM - 3:15 PM |
Overview
Sarah Jones & Emma Hooper, Uniting Victas
Details
Three Key Learnings
1. Adaptive scaling model: Pilot-refine-expand methodology ensures quality while achieving unprecedented reach across diverse service contexts.
2. Flexible standardisation: Centralised frameworks with site-specific customization balance consistency with real-world applicability.
3. Infrastructure, not intervention: Embedding harm reduction into organizational DNA through policy, champions, and onboarding creates self-sustaining capacity that outlasts project funding.
1. Adaptive scaling model: Pilot-refine-expand methodology ensures quality while achieving unprecedented reach across diverse service contexts.
2. Flexible standardisation: Centralised frameworks with site-specific customization balance consistency with real-world applicability.
3. Infrastructure, not intervention: Embedding harm reduction into organizational DNA through policy, champions, and onboarding creates self-sustaining capacity that outlasts project funding.
Speaker
Ms Emma Hooper
Senior Manager, Community and Forensic AOD
Uniting Victoria & Tasmania
Building AOD Capacity in Non-Specialist Services: A Naloxone Training Approach
Biography
Emma Hooper is the Senior Manager, Community and Forensic AOD at Uniting Vic. Tas. She holds a Master of Social Work and has over 10 years’ experience across the AOD and family violence sectors. Beginning her career as a clinician specialising in group-based work with forensic consumers, Emma has since led innovative programs improving outcomes for people affected by substance use. She oversees AOD services across Victoria and Tasmania, including non-residential rehabilitation, harm reduction, counselling, and clinical nurse support. Emma also brings 12 years’ government experience and holds qualifications in communications and leadership.
Sarah Jones
Manager Aod Clinical Services And Partnerships
Unitng Victas
Building AOD Capacity in Non-Specialist Services: A Naloxone Training Approach
Abstract
As nitazenes and synthetic opioids reshape Australia's overdose landscape, frontline workers outside AOD services and community are increasingly first responders to drug-related crises. Uniting Vic.Tas's groundbreaking Harm Reduction and Naloxone Capacity Building project transforms this challenge into opportunity, equipping 2,000+ non-specialist staff across Victoria and Tasmania with life-saving overdose response capabilities.
This pioneering 2-year initiative tackles the critical disconnect between rising overdose risks and workforce readiness in mainstream services. Through strategic three-tranche implementation—piloting in Carer Services before systematic expansion—we've revolutionised how large organisations build AOD competency at scale. Our innovative approach combines cutting-edge eLearning, immersive workshops, and locally-adapted protocols that transform anxious non-specialists into confident harm reduction practitioners.
Moving beyond traditional one-off training models, we've architected sustainable systems change through champion networks, policy integration, and embedding naloxone response into standard onboarding. This creates perpetual capacity-building infrastructure that evolves with emerging drug threats.
Results are transformative: staff confidence in naloxone access and administration has increased. Overdose awareness has increased dramatically, and previously unreachable at-risk populations now access life-saving interventions through trusted service relationships. Most critically, we've normalised harm reduction conversations in spaces where stigma once silenced them.
Key Innovations:
1. Adaptive scaling model: Pilot-refine-expand methodology ensures quality while achieving unprecedented reach across diverse service contexts
2. Flexible standardisation: Centralised frameworks with site-specific customization balance consistency with real-world applicability
3. Infrastructure, not intervention: Embedding harm reduction into organizational DNA through policy, champions, and onboarding creates self-sustaining capacity that outlasts project funding
This model offers a blueprint for transforming non-specialist workforces into vital overdose prevention networks, meeting communities where emerging drug threats hit hardest.
This pioneering 2-year initiative tackles the critical disconnect between rising overdose risks and workforce readiness in mainstream services. Through strategic three-tranche implementation—piloting in Carer Services before systematic expansion—we've revolutionised how large organisations build AOD competency at scale. Our innovative approach combines cutting-edge eLearning, immersive workshops, and locally-adapted protocols that transform anxious non-specialists into confident harm reduction practitioners.
Moving beyond traditional one-off training models, we've architected sustainable systems change through champion networks, policy integration, and embedding naloxone response into standard onboarding. This creates perpetual capacity-building infrastructure that evolves with emerging drug threats.
Results are transformative: staff confidence in naloxone access and administration has increased. Overdose awareness has increased dramatically, and previously unreachable at-risk populations now access life-saving interventions through trusted service relationships. Most critically, we've normalised harm reduction conversations in spaces where stigma once silenced them.
Key Innovations:
1. Adaptive scaling model: Pilot-refine-expand methodology ensures quality while achieving unprecedented reach across diverse service contexts
2. Flexible standardisation: Centralised frameworks with site-specific customization balance consistency with real-world applicability
3. Infrastructure, not intervention: Embedding harm reduction into organizational DNA through policy, champions, and onboarding creates self-sustaining capacity that outlasts project funding
This model offers a blueprint for transforming non-specialist workforces into vital overdose prevention networks, meeting communities where emerging drug threats hit hardest.
Biography
Sarah is the Manager of AOD Clinical Services & Partnerships at Uniting AOD which is part of the AOD, Mental & Carers division at Uniting VicTas. Sarah is passionate about making the sectors that care for people work better for the people that use them. She has worked as an AOD clinician, family therapist, workforce development consultant, trainer and project lead and clinical manager with a special interest in clinical governance, model of care development, sector capacity building and integration. Her specialist area of therapeutic practice is working with families where substance use is an issue.
