This Intersectional AOD Practice Guide is designed to support alcohol and other drug (AOD) services and practitioners to better support the needs of people who experience diverse and intersecting forms of marginalisation.
What is the guide?
We developed up this practice guide to support the AOD sector to apply an intersectional practice lens to their work.
At its core, intersectionality is about understanding:
- The whole person within their context
- Their experiences of overlapping discrimination/oppression/marginalisation
- The significant relationships in people’s lives, including with their families, communities, organisations, systems and society
- The contexts in which these relationships occur, including historical, current and systemic
- How the above factors shape how people see, interact with and experience the world.
Services and practitioners can consider intersectionality as a ‘lens’ to critically reflect on positions of privilege and oppression. Applying intersectionality to practice is an active process that requires:
- Respectful curiosity about the experiences of ourselves and others
- Investigation of one’s own beliefs, assumptions and experiences of privilege, power and marginalisation
- Recognition of the overlapping effects of systems and structures that contribute to marginalisation and oppression.
How we did it
This guide is intentionally designed to be active and participatory. We invite you to complete reflective activities about yourself and your practice, as either a service leader or as a frontline practitioner. It contains considerations and activities for service leaders and practitioners to work through and reflect on.
Our impact
This guide has been designed to support the implementation of intersectional practice within AOD services in order to improve service responses for marginalised people, who have traditionally been excluded from AOD service support.
Download the Guide
The Intersectional AOD Practice Guide is available now.
Click here to download a PDF copy!
Training and support
If you would like to chat to CFRE about tailored intersectionality training for your organisation or sector, please: training@ds.org.au
Click here for upcoming training dates.