Barriers to drug service access by minority ethnic populations in the European Union and how they can begin to be dismantled

Across the European Union, there are common barriers to drug service access by members of minority ethnic communities: lack of cultural sensitivity by the service, distrust of confidentiality, language, a lack of knowledge of drugs and drug services by members of these communities, stigma, and the failure of drug services to target minority ethnic drug users. Fortunately, there are some initiatives throughout the European Union that are success-fully engaging minority ethnic communities in needs assessments. The Com-munity Engagement Programme in the UK is one such example. This project trained and supported members of minority ethnic community organisations to conduct drug service needs assessments in their own communities in or-der that barriers to drug service access can begin to be dismantled. Al-though the research and needs assessment reports were an important out-come of this project, of equal importance was the process of building the skills and capacities of the individuals and community organisations in-volved. This paper focuses particularly on the support needs of the commu-nity organisations, arguing that, with support mechanisms in place, commu-nity members can conduct effective and far more relevant research into their needs than traditional needs assessments conducted by external researchers.