Tackling Drug and Substance Misuse 2023: Working in Partnership to Improve Outcomes

Mark Monaghan is a Reader in Criminology at Loughborough University UK. He has also worked at the Universities of Birmingham and Leeds. Mark’s main research interests are in the area of illicit drug policy and practice. He is currently undertaking a large-scale evaluation of Police Led Drug Diversion Schemes with colleagues from five universities across the UK and the College of Policing funded by the Cabinet Office.

Chris Philp was appointed Minister of State in the Home Office on 26 October 2022. He was Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office between 14 October 2022 and 25 October 2022. He was previously appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 6 September 2022 to 14 October 2022. He was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport between 17 September 2021 and 7 July 2022.

He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office and Ministry of Justice from 13 February 2020 to 16 September 2021. Before that, he was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice from 10 September 2019 to 18 December 2019 and Minister for London at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government from 18 December 2019 to 13 February 2020.

Vicki has worked in the substance misuse sector since 1998. She is an Executive Director for Change Grow Live, the UK’s largest provider of drug and alcohol treatment services. Vicki’s portfolio includes leadership in the areas of criminal justice, homelessness and employability as well as the delivery of all services across the Eastern, London and South-East regions.

Vicki represents the substance misuse sector in her role on the Clinks Reducing Re-offending 3rd Sector Board and is a Trustee of St Christopher’s, a children’s social care charity. Vicki has a master’s degree in criminology from the University of Cambridge and previously worked for the Home Office Drug Prevention Advisory Service.

Richard is the Chief Constable of Dyfed-Powys Police having taken up the role in December 2021.  Prior to this Richard was the Chief Constable of Cleveland Police.

Richard is originally from Carmarthenshire in West Wales and joined Dyfed-Powys Police in 2000.

Richard has worked in a variety of roles in uniform and CID as well as working as the Head of the Professional Standards Department and as Chair of the Wales Counter Corruption Working Group. He served in every rank up to (and including) Deputy Chief Constable at Dyfed-Powys Police.

In 2010, Richard gained a Fulbright Scholarship, a prestigious educational programme, at Pennsylvania State University where he studied Taser deployments leading to adverse incidents. The work was conducted in policing agencies as diverse as Dallas, Seattle and New York Police Departments. The majority of his time in the United States was spent working with the Emergency Service Unit of NYPD, based in Brooklyn.

Richard has also guest edited the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 and served as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Richard holds two National Police Chiefs’ Council portfolios, leading on Drugs and Policing Performance and gained his PhD with Bath Spa University studying change management.

In Jason’s time as a police officer, he came to understand the unintended consequences and subsequent damage caused by marginalisation and inequality within the justice system and became a passionate advocate for challenging stigma and diverting people away from the criminal justice system. He helped to develop the Thames Valley drug diversion scheme, which enables everyone found with controlled drugs an assessment of their use and education/harm reduction without the need for arrest, interview nor admission of guilt. This scheme has been a catalyst for health-based drug interventions across the UK and further afield, also leading to policy changes within education to negate the need for exclusions. The diversion scheme harmonises with a whole system approach to engage all communities.

He regularly sits on academic panels and international events where he shares his knowledge on evidence-based drug diversion, and on emerging schemes in the UK, such as recent events held by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

Danny Hames has 24 years’ experience working in the public and voluntary sectors, within criminal justice, long terms conditions and the drug and alcohol treatment sector. He has worked as a Practitioner, Operational manager and Head of Development. In September 2018 he became the Head of Inclusion which is part of the Midlands NHS Foundation University Partnership University Trust. Inclusion is the largest NHS provider of drug and alcohol services in England working in both prisons and the community. Inclusion also provides Sexual Health, Primary Care Mental Health Services including Talking Therapies, Gambling Harms services, an in Patient detoxification service and Prison Mental Health Services. Danny is an accredited PRINCE2 and MSP Practitioner and holds a PG Certificate in Drug and Alcohol Policy and a MA in Voluntary Sector Studies.

Danny is Chair and a founding member of the NHS Addictions Provider Alliance starting in 2016, this is a collaboration of eighteen NHS trusts who provide addiction services including drug and alcohol treatment as well as Gambling Harms services – the aim being to develop a network that contributes positively across addictions policy and practice. Through his role as Head of Inclusion and Chair of the NHS APA he has been part of a number of expert groups and attended parliamentary select committees.

The NHS APA provides a NHS treatment service voice to the benefit of the sector and as part of this runs annual conferences. The NHS APA currently work in over 50 prisons and 35 community services across England. NHS APA is also the umbrella under which the Hep C U Later Hepatitis C micro elimination initiative has been developed and provided with NHS England and Gilead. NHS APA also runs the Stigma Kills Campaign. Danny is also the Vice Chair of the recently formed Anti Stigma Network.

Apollos is responsible for Framework’s Health and Social care services, including Substance use treatment, Mental Health support and registered care activities. Apollos is the responsible individual for CQC registered services, the organisations’ Caldecott Guardian and is also Framework’s executive member of Nottingham City’s Place Based Partnership (PBP) and executive sponsor of the PBP’s severe multiple disadvantage workstream.

Apollos joined Framework in 2008 to help develop Framework’s substance misuse treatment services, having previously worked in a range of hospital and community settings as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in substance misuse treatment. Apollos recently advised on the development of the Commissioning Quality Standards for alcohol and drug treatment and recovery as a member of its expert advisory group and has been awarded Honorary Membership of the Faculty of Public Health for his work with severe multiple disadvantage during the Covid-19 pandemic.