London Friend is a partner in Rise, a new partnership delivering HIV prevention and sexual health services in Lambeth, Southwark & Lewisham (LSL). We will be providing one-to-one and group support to gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men where their risk is related to chemsex.

Men wishing to gain more information about managing chems and preventing HIV can refer into Rise at Antidote, and over the coming months we’ll be establishing new locations within Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham to access support and information.

The Rise Partnership is led by NAZ, who together with Race Equality Foundation, GMFA and London Friend’s Antidote service will provide HIV prevention and sexual health services to Black African & Caribbean communities and gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM)  across Lambeth Southwark & Lewisham (LSL) from  April 2016.

For more information, or to access support, contact Antidote’s outreach manager Jamie Willis (click to email) or call us on 020 7833 1674.

For more information on The Rise Partnership click here.

Late on Friday afternoon we herd the very sad and shocking news that one of our fellow LGBT services, Pace, is to close this week after 31 years providing mental health support to LGBT people.

We’re very saddened to hear this; Pace has been a partner with us over the years, most recently as a member of the National LGB & T Partnership, working to ensure the voice of LGBT charities and the experiences of our service users is heard by NHS England, Public Health England and the Department of Health.

Is is especially saddening to hear about the difficulties Pace experienced in securing funding. We too are concerned about the longer-term sustainability of specialist LGBT services, with cuts to central and local government funding and to public health spending. This is worrying trend for the LGBT charity sector, which as is stands accounts for just 0.04% of voluntary sector funding overall – our entire sector receive just 4p in every £100 of charity income.

Due to having to find efficiencies within their own teams, there is now a tendency for commissioners to seek large single contracts, a process which excludes LGBT services from most tendering processes. Equally there is no guarantee larger providers such as drug treatment, smoking cessation or mental health services, will want to sub-contract to LGBT providers to ensure that their services reach diverse communities.

The short and long term effect on LGBT people of the closure of Pace remains to be seen. We anticipate an increase in demand for our counselling service, as people begin to look elsewhere, which could increase waiting times considerably.

For now our thoughts are with the volunteers, staff, and above all, service users of Pace as they come to terms with this sad news. We wish them all well, and thank you for your great work over the years. You’ll be sorely missed.

To support London Friend’s work to improve the health and well-being of LGBT people by making a regular or one-off donation click here.

Christmas & New Year support

The festive season can be a lot of fun, but for some people it’s a time of heightened anxiety. It’s the season to be jolly, but sometimes that can tip over into excess. Here’s some information to keep you safer over the Christmas and New Year period.

If you’re partying know your limits. Everyone likes to let their hair down at Christmas but that morning glass of fizz can catch up with you if you’re still going by the evening, and parties do tend to last longer and be more frequent at this time of the year. You can find our tips for cutting back and pacing your drinking here. Don’t forget that we are inviting people to join us for a Sober Start to 2016, going booze-free for a month. You can sign up to fundraise for us via a sponsored alcohol-free January or donate to the campaign via Just Giving.

If you’re going to be partying using drugs you can find lots of information about reducing the risk here. Remember to look out for your friends, and if anyone at your party overdoses call 999.

If you’re having sex, or hoping to see the New Year in with a (gang) bang remember to stock up with plenty of condoms and lube. Gay & bisexual men will find plenty of safer sexual health advice over at the website of our friends at GMFA.

If you think you may have picked up an unwanted gift due to exposure to an HIV risk you can seek advice & PEP (within no more than 72 hours) from a GUM clinic such as 56 Dean Street, Mortimer Market Centre orBurrell Street in central London. If these are closed you can access PEP through your local A&E. In Central London these can be found at:

University College Hospital

235 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BU

Tel: 0845 155 5000

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

369 Fulham Road, London, SW10 9NH

Tel: 020 8746 8000

St Thomas’ Hospital

Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7EH

Tel: 020 7188 7188

If you feel alone this Christmas and want to talk to another LGBT person our friends Switchboard will have their helpline open daily 10am – 11pm. If you are at risk of abuse or violence at home, Broken Rainbow has published some tips along with details of their Christmas opening times, including Christmas Day. The charity Crisis has opened its Christmas centres for homeless people and will run until December 30^th. If you feel suicidal you can call Samaritans 24 hours a day. In an emergency go to your local A&E.

London Friend’s services will resume on Monday 4^th January as normal. Our Antidote drug & alcohol drop-in will run on that day 11 – 1 in Kings Cross.

We wish you a happy, safe Christmas and a healthy 2016.

London Friend

Today we’ve launched out Sober Start campaign, encouraging LGBT people to give up alcohol for January and kick start sustained reductions in their drinking. Those joining can be sponsored to enjoy a booze-free start to the year and raise money for Antidote, our specialist LGBT alcohol and drug service.

Research indicates that LGBT drink more, and more often, than society as a whole, and this could be increasing long-term risks to health. Sober Start is about taking a break, detoxing for a month after the excesses of Christmas and New Year, and thinking about reductions to drinking all year round.

Having a month off can bring health benefits such as sleeping better and feeling more energised. Cutting back on a longer-term basis can reduce the risks of more serious alcohol-related health issues in later life.

Read more about the campaign on out Sober Start pages, where you’ll also find information to help you assess your own drinking and advice to cut down over time.

To sign up for sponsorship for your Sober Start, or to make a donation to the campaign, head to our Just Giving pages: http://campaign.justgiving.com/charity/londonfriend/soberstart2016

Our CEO Monty Moncrieff discusses why giving matters so much to LGBT charities.

Today is Giving Tuesday, an initiative to encourage people to support the work of charities and other good causes. It’s an opportunity to make a donation to your favourite cause, or to consider an offer of time through volunteering or organising a fundraising event.

This is the text of a blog I wrote to mark last year’s event, but the issues for LGBT charities have not gone away, so I’m republishing it again to mark this Giving Tuesday.

For LGBT charities giving is a vital lifeline. Services like London Friend rely on the generosity of givers to be able to provide the support we do to over 3000 LGBT people each year. Our work is regularly supported by over 100 volunteers who help to run our coming out and social groups, our helpline, our counselling service and Antidote, our LGBT drug & alcohol service. Volunteering is a way of giving back to your community, and supporting fellow LGBT people who are experiencing a difficult time.

We rely too on monetary donations, as a one-off gift, as the result of a fundraising event, or as a regular monthly donation. No amount is too small: £5 will help us answer a helpline call. £10 will buy the coffee & biscuits for one of our drop-ins. £40 will help us provide a counselling session. £100 will help us to train our volunteers.

As a sector LGBT charities are significantly underfunded. Despite LGBT people making up at least 2.5% of the population (at even the most conservative estimates) our sector receives just 0.04% of the total funding to voluntary sector organisations – just 4 pence in every £100. A recent report from the TUC suggests that this tiny under-investment may be under even greater threat as funders see cutting diversity as easy savings, mainstreaming this work into generic services.

A recent review of income in the LGBT sector found that LGBT charities were more reliant on precarious public sector grants, which account for almost two thirds of sector income, as opposed to just a third of the voluntary sector as a whole. With further squeezes on spending this places specialist services at risk. The same review found that LGBT charities receive less in individual giving than charities as a whole, just 21% of our income versus 42% in the wider sector. This is why individual giving and initiatives like Giving Tuesday are so important to us.

Losing funding or the support of volunteers would lose the quality that specialist LGBT organisations bring. Our service users routinely tell us they value specialist support as this makes them feel safe, welcome, and understood. It’s important that the value of specialist diversity organisations is not lost, and through Giving Tuesday we can highlight the importance of supporting this essential work.

You can make a regular or one-off donation to support London Friend’s work here. You can donate your time as a volunteer – find out more about volunteering with us here. You can find out more about fundraising for us by holding your own event or sponsored activity here.

Monty