Harm Reduction – Elevate

Consumer Consensus on the Optimal Deliver of the Opioid Dependence Treatment Program – Webinar 3

Consumer Consensus on the Optimal Deliver of the Opioid Dependence Treatment Program

Description:

In this webinar, you will hear what people with lived-living experience of the Opioid Dependence Treatment Program (ODTP) have identified as priorities for optimal delivery of the program in Australia. The consumer consensus statement presented in this webinar was developed through consultation with AIVL member organisations and people across Australia who have direct experience of the ODTP.

Date: Wednesday 2 September

Time: 12:00pm – 1:30PM AEST

Cost: Online – A link will be sent to you before the webinar

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here for more information and to register

Pharmacotherapy Systems, Mapping Challenges and Best Practice – Webinar 2

Pharmacotherapy systems, mapping challenges and best practice: What We’ve Learned and What It Means for Opioid Treatment

Description:

This webinar provides an overview of emerging findings from recent research that has aimed to build a shared understanding of challenges and priorities in opioid dependence treatment. It brings together insights from clinicians, consumers, and service leaders to highlight barriers to access, workforce and service issues, and areas where further evidence and alignment are needed.

The session is designed to inform and prepare stakeholders for the National Consensus for Action Forum: A Roundtable on Australian Opioid Dependence Treatment in Canberra focused on consensus-building, advocacy, and practical action.

Target Audience

Clinicians delivering opioid agonist treatment (OAT)
Clinical directors, service managers, and governance leads
Researchers and guideline developers engaged in opioid treatment
Consumers (though specific webinars are planed that are targeted primarily for this audience)

Key Outputs/Outcomes

By the end of the webinar participants will:

Shared understanding of challenges and priorities from a treatment system perspective
Greater alignment across clinical and system stakeholders
Documented points of convergence and uncertainty.

Relationship to the National Consensus for Action Roundtable

This webinar provides evidence informed context, ensuring that by September:

Major challenges and priorities are already mapped
Forum participants can focus on consensus statements, advocacy priorities, and action planning
The research process actively strengthens sector advocacy rather than running parallel to it

Date: Tuesday, 25 August

Time: 1:00pm – 2:30PM AEST

Cost: Online – A link will be sent to you before the webinar

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here for more information and to register

Setting the Scene: Reforming Australia’s ODTP – Webinar 1

Setting the Scene: Reforming Australia’s ODTP – Key Evidence, Priorities and Unfinished Business

Description:

The ODTP National Consensus for Action Roundtable will be held on 7 September 2026 at Parliament House Canberra, where expert representatives including lived and living experience advocates, policy makers, clinicians, researchers and other key stakeholders will be joined by Australian Government Parliamentarians, bureaucrats and ministerial representatives to build and endorse a National Opioid Dependency Treatment (ODT) Program consensus statement. Our aim is that this document will outline critical, cross-jurisdictional ODT program principles that centre efficacy, equity and sustainability, and the associated actions required to implement meaningful healthcare and systems reform. This process is a crucial unified step towards an internationally accepted gold-standard for ODT in this country and a commitment to future healthcare innovation, that Australian communities should rightfully expect, and that clinical and policy experts agree is an imperative priority to deliver.

This webinar, the first in a series of three pre-roundtable events, will guide participants through a detailed overview of two key documents: the recently launched Harm Reduction Australia (HRA) Opioid Treatment Program Policy Brief and the PBS Post-Market Review of PBS ODTP Medicines Report to PBAC (March 2023). An overview of available ODTP medications, additional formulations and alternative approaches to ODT that have succeeded in other jurisdictions internationally, will also be explored. Informing the consensus building discussions that will take place at Parliament House in September, this webinar is intentionally informative and sets the groundwork for building meaningful consensus in the lead-up to the face‑to‑face Roundtable event. Providing a backdrop for policy and research perspectives in the Australian setting, we warmly invite webinar participants to take up the opportunity to participate by contributing questions, as well as to become familiar with what is possible in building our own successful future model for ODT.

Date: Tuesday, 11 August

Time: 1:00pm – 3:00PM AEST

Cost: Online – A link will be sent to you before the webinar

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here for more information and to register

When the Prescription Becomes the Problem

Registration: Click here to register

When the Prescription Becomes the Problem: Assessing and Managing Dependence on Benzodiazepines, Opioid Analgesics and other medications

This is a 45 minute Turning Point Connect & Learn webinar. To attend the webinar, click the link below to register.

Description: This presentation will look at how concurrent alcohol use changes risk, presentation and overdose potential, and what clinicians need to watch for in day-to-day assessment and management.

Dr Basanth Kenchaiah is a general adult and addiction psychiatrist with a particular interest in prescription medication dependence and managing inappropriate polypharmacy. He works part time at GV Health and St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, in addition to private practice at Delmont Private Hospital. He sits on the executive committee of the Australian Deprescribing Network and was until recently Chair of the Subcommittee for Advanced Training in Addiction Psychiatry, RANZCP.

Date: Tuesday,29 September

Time: 1:00pm – 1:45PM

Cost: Online – A link will be sent to you before the webinar

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here to register

Methamphetamine use and psychosis: evidence, guidelines & what’s cooking

*This workshop is now full!*

This is a 45 minute Turning Point Connect & Learn webinar. To attend the webinar, click the link below to register.

Description: What’s really cooking in methamphetamine treatment? This talk explores current evidence for effective medication and psychosocial interventions, demystifies meth psychosis (what we know and what remains unclear), and bridges the gap between research and practice. We’ll unpack emerging guidelines and trials, including psychedelic-assisted approaches, to give clinicians an understanding of what you can offer right now, and what the next few years will bring.

Associate Professor Shalini Arunogiri is a clinical addiction psychiatrist and researcher at Monash University and Turning Point, Eastern Health. She is the Clinical Director of the Hamilton Centre, Victoria’s statewide centre for co-occurring addiction and mental health, and an NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow. Shalini has been an investigator on six Australian national multisite randomised controlled trials of methamphetamine use disorder treatments: N-ICE, LiMA, Ready2Change, the Tina Trial, OLAM, and PsiMA.

Shalini completed her PhD on methamphetamine psychosis in 2019 and has published extensively on this topic, with over 37 research outputs and more than $11 million in grant funding focused on methamphetamine. Shalini is immediate past Chair of the RANZCP Faculty of Addiction Psychiatry, past Board Director of the International Society of Addiction Medicine, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Dual Diagnosis. She works alongside clinician-researchers across addiction and mental health, committed to building the evidence base for integrated care and treatments for people who use methamphetamine.

Date: Tuesday, 27 October 2026

Time: 1:00pm – 1:45PM

Cost: Online – A link will be sent to you before the webinar

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here to register

Webinar: Can we really change behaviour at a population level? The Communities that Care approach to preventing and reducing drug and alcohol-related behaviour in Australia

This is a one-hour Talking Point webinar. To attend the webinar, click the link below to register.

Description:

Over 30 Local Government Areas have used the framework to reduce alcohol consumption, injuries and crime. In the US it has been used to also reduce smoking, cannabis and depression. An Australian cost benefit analysis has shown that using the CTC approach to adolescent alcohol consumption has a return of investment of $2.60. This presentation will outline the Communities that Care model and how communities can use the model. It will also present findings from the National Australian Cluster Randomised Control Trial, and other national and international longitudinal evidence. This webinar will be presented by Dr Bosco Rowland.

Date: Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Time: 1:00pM – 2:00PM

Location: Zoom

Cost: Free

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here to register

Webinar: Integrating Hepatitis C testing and treatment into addiction care of people who inject drugs – lessons from Melbourne’s Medically Supervised Injecting Room

This is a Turning Point Connect & Learn one-hour webinar. To attend the webinar, click the link below to register.

Description: According to WHO, hepatitis C is the main cause death globally in people who inject drugs, yet it is easy to diagnose and treat. Australia has the potential to eliminate hepatitis C, but this requires a concerted effort to diagnose and treat HCV in PWID, not just those who have injected in the past but those who are continuing to inject drugs. While diagnostic and treatment pathways for HCV are simple, adapting them to the needs of our clients, rather than expecting our clients to adapt to our treatment systems, is the key to increasing the rates of diagnosis and treatment. This has implications for both the way we design our health care systems and the way we manage individuals within those systems. The webinar will be presented by A/Prof Nico Clark.

Date: Tuesday, 16 September 2025

Time: 1:00pM – 1:45PM

Location: Zoom

Cost: Free

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here to register

Webinar: Nicotine e-cigarettes for smoking cessation following discharge from smokefree inpatient AOD withdrawal services: A pragmatic randomized controlled trial

This is a Turning Point Talking Point one-hour webinar. To attend the webinar, click the link below to register.

Description: E-cigarettes containing nicotine (e-cigarettes) have demonstrated effectiveness for smoking cessation among general populations, but limited evidence in people with substance use disorders (SUD). This presentation will focus on the NEAT Trial, a pragmatic, two-arm, open-label parallel-group randomized controlled trial (n=363) examining the effectiveness of e-cigarettes for smoking abstinence in people with SUD following discharge from smokefree inpatient withdrawal services. The webinar will be presented by Professor Billi Bonevski.

Date: Wednesday, 29 October 2025

Time: 1:00pM – 2:00PM

Location: Zoom

Cost: Free

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here to register

Webinar: Managing opioid agonist treatment in regional Victoria

This is a Turning Point Connect & Learn one-hour webinar. To attend the webinar, click the link below to register.

Description: Attendees will gain an increased appreciation for managing clients in rural and regional Victoria. Discussion will focus on the need for flexibility within the regulations guiding practice, and attendees will gain understanding regarding the difficulties of distance and opioid agonist treatment.

Date: Tuesday, 28 October 2025

Time: 1:00pM – 1:45PM

Location: Zoom

Cost: Free

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here to register

Webinar: From LOLs to Lows: Rethinking Nangs and Youth Harm Reduction

This is a one-hour Talking Point webinar. To attend the webinar, click the link below to register.

Description: Nitrous Oxide (N2O), colloquially known as “laughing gas” or “nangs”, is a dissociative anaesthetic that has become increasingly popular among young people. The growing popularity of N2O can be attributed to its ease of access through social media and messaging platforms. Concerns of the harmful effects of N2O on users’ physical and psychological health have grown; yet this growing concern is not matched by harm reduction support. This mismatch highlights not only the need to develop harm reduction resources for N2O but also for these resources to be adapted to social media platforms. This study drew on the lived experience of young people who used N2O to develop harm reduction resources for dissemination on social media. This webinar will be presented by Prof Julaine Allan & A/Prof Jacqui Cameron

Date: Wednesday, 3 September 2025

Time: 1:00pM – 2:00PM

Location: Zoom

Cost: Free

Who should attend: This webinar is only available to staff who are working in a Victorian Department of Health (DH) funded AOD organisation.

Registration: Click here to register