Working with the police service and homeless services in North West England to reduce alcohol harms : A feasibility study of a tailored Blue Light approach

Irizar, Patricia and Vicary, Emily and Glossop, Zoe and Waller, Gillian and Lightowlers, Carly and Quigg, Zara and Roper, Louise and Gilmore, Ian and Coulton, Simon and Newbury-Birch, Dorothy and Goodwin, Laura (2024) Working with the police service and homeless services in North West England to reduce alcohol harms : A feasibility study of a tailored Blue Light approach. Journal of substance use and addiction treatment, 159: 209259. ISSN 2949-8759

Abstract

Deaths caused by alcohol are increasing in England and 80 % of people with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are not in treatment. The Blue Light approach (Alcohol Change UK) is an initiative to support people with AUDs who are not in treatment. This study aimed to tailor the Blue Light approach (combined with alcohol identification and alcohol brief interventions [ABI] training) for police officers and homeless service staff in North West England, and to qualitatively evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the training. The Blue Light approach was tailored using co-production activities, based on Transdisciplinary Action Research. Full-day and half-day training sessions were delivered to the police (full-day N = 14, half-day N = 54) and homeless service staff (full-day N = 11, half-day N = 32), in local police stations and online (four half-day sessions). Semi-structured interviews (N = 23) were conducted to evaluate implementation and integration, analysing the qualitative data in line with Normalisation Process Theory. Four themes were identified, each with two to three sub-themes, reflecting: (i) the importance of training for working practice, (ii) implementation of the interventions, (iii) changes to relationships within and between organizations, and (iv) recommendations for further changes to the training. Differences in findings across the organizations (police versus homeless services) and by training type attended (full-day versus half-day, in-person versus online) are presented. There is evidence to suggest that the training has provided worthwhile knowledge and intervention techniques that can become embedded into working practices. Nevertheless, structural barriers were apparent, primarily within the police service, with clear disparities between recognising the value of the training and what is achievable in practice, given the competing demands. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.]