London Friend

Are you affected by someone else’s drug or alcohol use? Is your partner, friend or family member engaged in chemsex?

London Friend’s drug and alcohol support service Antidote has worked in partnership with Adfam, the national charity working to improve life for families affected by drugs or alcohol, to develop a resource for families, friends and partners of LGBT people using alcohol, drugs or engaged in chemsex.

Find out more and download the resource here

The Government has today announced it will extend the HPV vaccination programme to protect boys as well as girls. This follows extensive campaigning by HPV Action, of which London Friend is a member.

The move is good news for young gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM), who were previously at greater risk, falling outside of the assumed ‘herd’ protection through the vaccination of girls.

HPV is associated with a number of related diseases, most notably cervical cancer but also oral, throat, penile and anal cancers and genital warts.

Since April 2018 some adult MSM can obtain the vaccination through a targeted programme, following a pilot programme.

London Friend’s Chief Executive Monty Moncrieff welcomed the news, saying “We’ve supported HPV Action’s campaign to extend the HPV vaccine to all boys to ensure that those who go on to have sex with men as adults are protected before their first sexual experience. We’re delighted that the Government has listened, and has announced this programme, and we call upon them to ensure it is rolled out as soon as possible.”

Notes

1. HPV causes about 5% of all cancers, specifically cervical, vulval and vaginal in women, penile in men, and anal and head and neck cancers in both sexes. HPV also causes genital warts and recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP) in both men and women.

2. HPV Action estimates that, each year in the UK, there are around 2,000 new cases of cancer in men caused by HPV and about 43,000 new cases of genital warts. At any one time, about 600 men and boys are affected by RRP.

3. Men who have sex with men (MSM), who are at greater risk of HPV-related diseases, are offered some protection by a recently-introduced vaccination programme delivered via sexual health clinics. However, this will reach too few MSM and will reach them too late, after many have already been infected with HPV.

6. The vaccination of boys is becoming more widely adopted internationally. About 20 countries now either vaccinate boys or plan to do so soon, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the USA.

A 10,000 place PrEP trial was never going to meet demand – it’s time to make PrEP available to all who need it

Alongside 31 other organisations, we are calling on NHS England and local authorities to ensure the routine availability of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) on the NHS in England by 1 April 2019.

That’s why we’ve signed a joint community statement We need PrEP on the NHS now.

The current three-year PrEP Impact trial isn’t fit for purpose. It’s capped at 10,000 places and within just eight months over 7,000 of these are taken.

Many participating clinics are now closed to gay and bisexual men, which means people are being turned away from clinics who are in need of PrEP – some of whom have contracted HIV as a result.

PrEP is almost 100% effective when taken as prescribed, it’s cost effective when measured against the cost of lifelong HIV treatment and care, and will ultimately stop many, many people from becoming HIV positive.

NHS England and local authority commissioners must start the process now to ensure PrEP is routinely available in sexual health clinics by 1 April 2019 at the latest. We believe the PrEP IMPACT trial should continue alongside routine commissioning.

Monty Moncrieff, Chief Executive at London Friend, said: “We need PrEP to be routinely available to all who need it. The limited places on the Impact Trial mean that many gay and bisexual men in London are not able to access it in this way. PrEP works – that’s well established. We can’t delay roll-out any longer.”

Read the full community statement and show your support on social using the hashtag #PrEPNow.

London Friend is delighted to be supported by BLOUSE this Pride. The fashion label is teaming up with us to highlight LGBT mental health, with sales from their summer 2018 range raising funds to support our work. £10 from each of 4 rainbow designs will be donated.

BLOUSE designer Geoffrey J. Finch was inspired to develop this partnership following the loss of a friend:

“The tragic suicide of a friend kicked me into gear. He wasn’t the first either. Life ain’t always rainbow leopard and 3D embroidery so all the better we can use them to help save and better lives. I’m thrilled to have my esteemed retail partners matching my contribution.”

Research indicates that mental health issues are more prevalent amongst LGBT people. Just this week the Government published the results of the National LGBT Survey, the largest study of LGBT people’s experiences anywhere in the world. The study highlighted that LGBT experience a poorer quality of life than society as a whole, and many had experienced difficulty accessing mental health support.

The survey also showed that respondents felt specialist LGBT charities were best placed to understand their needs.

London Friend’s Chief Executive Monty Moncrieff MBE welcomes the partnership with BLOUSE:

“We’re delighted to partner with BLOUSE to raise awareness of mental health within the LGBT communities. It’s important that we start conversations about our emotional wellbeing and connect with others around us. Geoffrey’s project is another voice adding to this conversation, and the project will also raise vital funds to help us provide mental health support to LGBT people.”

The BLOUSE range is available at: NET-A-PORTER.COM, Selfridges and blouse.world.

Pride Brunch – Saturday 7^th July

BLOUSE is also teaming up with Fantastic Man and Neptune this Saturday for a fabulous fundraising Pride Brunch! Fantastic food, cocktails and a fantastic range of raffle prizes donated by Olly Alexander, Russell Tovey, Alan Hollinghurst and man more.

Find out more and book tickets here.

London Friend’s Chief Executive, Monty Moncrieff, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

The award, for services to LGBT equality, recognises work done by London Friend to improve the health and wellbeing of LGBT people.

Monty has been working and volunteering with LGBT organisations for over 20 years, campaigning for LGBT equality and delivering direct support services to improve the health and wellbeing of the LGBT communities.

Speaking about the award, Monty said “I’m delighted and humbled to receive this acknowledgement for the work I do with London Friend. I’ve always been passionate about working for LGBT equality, and I’m happy that the work our LGBT community organisations do is now recognised in this way.”

He added “Working to improve LGBT equality has been a hard fought battle by many people over many years, often having to engage with those who have different views and who oppose our rights. Thankfully we’ve made a lot of progress, but that battle is still pertinent today, and I’m grateful for the many people who support our LGBT communities, including through volunteering. I’d like to pay tribute to them, including our fantastic volunteers and staff team at London Friend.”

Biography

Monty joined London Friend in 2011, and was appointed Chief Executive in 2012. He has been working and volunteering with LGBT organisations for over 20 years, starting as a helpline volunteer and subsequently a trustee with Switchboard in 1996.

In 2001 he joined Turning Point to develop their LGBT drug and alcohol work, and the following year established Antidote, the UK’s only fully LGBT run specialist drug and alcohol service, which is now managed by London Friend. Antidote was the first service in the UK to report chemsex and Monty has been leading the response, developing treatment services and training healthcare professionals. He has written guidance for drug and alcohol services to improve their work with LGBT clients and a briefing on alcohol support for LGBT people for Public Health England.

In 2010 he joined the Department of Health to lead a national programme of LGBT equality, working with stakeholders in the LGBT sector and the NHS, as well as with policy makers to improve LGBT inclusion in key health strategies such as Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. This work helped the Department rise to 24^th in Stonewall’s Top 100 Workplace Equality Index and to 3^rd place across all Government Departments in the Civil Service’s Trans Equality Index. Since returning to the LGBT voluntary sector he continues to work with Government, the NHS and Public Health England through the National LGB&T Partnership and working groups including chemsex and gender identity policy.

Monty was included in the Independent on Sunday’s Rainbow List of the top 100 most influential LGBT people in Britain for three years in 2013 – 2015. At London Friend he has led the organisation as it has won a National Diversity Award, a GSK Impact Award in partnership with The King’s Fund, and the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.

Outside of work he’s mildly obsessed with the Eurovision Song Contest.

Our CEO Monty Moncrieff reflects in the 30^th anniversary of Section 28 from a personal perspective

It’s 30 years ago today since the UK Government introduced the pernicious Section 28 of the Local Government Act. It prohibited local authorities from ‘promoting’ homosexuality. I was 17 and, well, not so much confused about whether I was gay, but more terrified because I knew deep down that I was.

It’s remarkable really that – on a personal level – Section 28 left me relatively unscathed. It certainly filled the news, and with it my impressionable mind, with the certainty that being gay was wrong, immoral, undesirable – and with HIV and AIDS padding out those headlines at the same time, as a man the message I took was that being gay was essentially going to kill me. This added to my fear and kept me from seeking out gay sex for another 4 years and from telling anyone for another 5.

Looking back, it may have been this very fear that perversely protected me because I just couldn’t engage in it too closely. I even eschewed the opportunity to come out in solidarity with a schoolfriend for whom the atmosphere of the day had seen him outed because I was paralysed with the terror of it all.

I’d never had a role model: had I been straight I’d have known exactly what was expected of me – I’d had it reinforced since a very young age, every one of my parents’ friends were ‘normal’ man-woman couples, and most were bringing up children. At best I might grow up to be a camp shop assistant a la Mr Humphries, or at worst one of the sad, lonely middle-aged men whose sex lives were restricted to furtive encounters with rent boys I’d seen on the first TV documentary I remember as a teen. How did the meaning of the word gay jump from being happy to this?

30 years on I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m robust in my identity, and I can now handle the homophobia that’s still thrown at me, whether it’s the overt name calling on the street or the ongoing systemic omission of people like me in policy, public services and social conscience. And things are immeasurably better, I don’t want to lose sight of that.

My inability to engage with being gay too closely in my late teens and early 20s was my unlikely buffer. But I see through my work everyday that there’s still generations of us not that lucky, they’re dealing today as adults with the impacts – substance use, anxiety, depression, and other poor mental health – of years of being told who they are was wrong, immoral, undesirable - by family members, by the media everyday in the papers, the news and the stories they saw in film and TV. And then reinforced by the Government passing a law that left us in no doubt how unwelcome – even how hated – we were. It’s no coincidence that identity, and people’s sense of personal (dis)comfort about who they are as lesbian, gay, bi or trans people, is still at the heart of almost every interaction we have.

Ultimately, I feel Section 28 was for many people the last straw, the step too far. It certainly spurned some of the most structured campaigning for LGBT rights through the creation of organisations like Stonewall, but with the long fight to repeal – and then atone – for it, much of the damage was already done. As we reflect on the prevailing attitudes of the day it’s saddening to see exactly the same arguments that were used to justify such hatred of gay people being made, sometimes still in the same publications, about trans people today.

The repetition of misinformation and scaremongering about the Gender Recognition Act is from the same school that would have had us believe gay men were paedophiles. They claim that being trans is being ‘promoted’ (that word again) by a ‘lobby’ that’s dangerous to children. (There’s an irony in how, for some, young trans men are supposedly being “encouraged” to transition rather than be lesbians.) Even where there may be legitimate discussion to be had about the interface of trans rights and women’s rights, trying to do this in language that directly echoes that of Section 28 is going to turn off anybody who now sees just how horrific the whole thing was.

I’m deeply saddened that we have this anniversary to mark; it’s an enormous blemish of the UK’s mostly progressive march from the 1967 Act that began the long journey to gay equality. But I’m happy to mark it knowing it’s another nail in the coffin for the attitudes that allowed it to happen. We’ve plenty still to do, not least the fight for LGBT-inclusive sex and relationships education, that gives children like I was, children growing up lesbian, gay, bi or trans, those vital early role models. They don’t even need to know they’re LGBT yet; but they do need to know there’s nothing wrong with it if they are.

Monty x

London Friend is relaunching Co-Exist, our therapeutic peer support group for gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men who are living with both HIV and hepatitis C.

Co-Exist will start on Tuesday 1^st May 2018, and will run for 6 weeks on the first and third Tuesdays of each month.

The group will:

• Provide support and understanding.
• Offer a safe place and a comfortable environment.
• Create support systems and perhaps create new friendships.
• Share experiences and learn how to live well with co-infection.
• Build coping mechanisms to deal with difficult feelings.
• Break down the sense of isolation felt from living with co-infection.

Co-Exist is facilitated by Joel, a qualified counsellor who has lived experience of co-infection and for the last 16 years has worked in health and social care.

This group requires prior booking. For more information and to book your place please contact Joel: joel@londonfriend.org.uk

We’re really excited to announce the launch of a brand new chemsex support service in the heart of South London. Based at the Caldecot Centre, The Axis Clinic is a collaboration between our Antidote LGBT drug & alcohol service, working through the RISE Partnership, with Kings College Hospital sexual health and HIV support team; the HIV mental health liaison team from South London and Maudsley; and the After Party chemsex outreach team.

The Axis Clinic has been created to provide support mostly for men who have sex with men (MSM). Support is offered through a range of interventions aimed at supporting clients to achieve more positive outcomes in relation to HIV prevention and management, sexual health, mental health and substance (mis) use. The clinic is particularly targeted towards clients engaging in drug & sex linked behaviour or “chemsex”.

Services offered at the clinic include:

• A dedicated sexual health clinic for men who have sex with men and transgender women
• Advice, support and access to PrEP and PEP
• Screening for sexually transmitted infections, HIV, Hepatitis B and C (Self screening or by appointment)
• Vaccination for hepatitis A and B
• Links into to HIV & hepatitis services at King's College Hospital
• Chemsex harm reduction advice, information, interventions and, where necessary, referral into support services
• Advice, interventions and triage ( where necessary ) for HIV+ clients whose mental health may have been compromised as a result of Chem use
• Advice and information for patients whose risk behaviour could lead them to become HIV positive.
• Psychiatric assessments and referral on as required
• Access to sexual health peer mentoring

Every agency involved in the clinic has significant expertise  and by bringing them together clinic, The Axis Clinic can offer multi-disciplinary support and, where necessary, referral routes to clients who  may be experiencing issues in any of the areas already outlined but may not, for whatever reason, be accessing existing community support services.

The Axis Clinic is predominantly a drop in service for clients who would like advice, information and, support around chemsex.  Axis will also run alongside the existing PrEP clinic and clients booking sexual health and PrEP appointments will also have the option to book in for chemsex advice and support.

The Axis Clinic runs on Wednesday evenings from 4.00 pm to 7.00 pm & is based at:

Caldecot Centre

15-22 Caldecot Rd, Camberwell, London SE5 9RS

For further information, contact Jamie Willis at antidote@londonfriend.org.uk