The work of ‘Ripping up the Rulebook’ is supported by an advisory group made up of substance use service providers, service users, and scholars who meet two to three times a year. The purpose of the Learning and Advisory Board (LAB) is to steer planning and dissemination while also being a place for mutual learning and exchange. A LAB is a fitting acronym for this kind of collaboration which is about testing out ideas and experimenting with what we ‘know’ about substance use and support.

Dr Anne Campbell has established an international reputation for work within the drugs and alcohol sector. Her combined work in both arenas has resulted in distinctive and leading research at UK Government level drug policy and practice reform. She is currently working on ‘wearables technology ’ to detect opioid overdose deaths , labelling for alcohol products using face recognition software and women and harm reduction approaches. Notably, she has also co–authored a number of UK ACMD research papers, for example; A review of Naloxone 2022, Drugs Use and Homelessness 2019, ACMD (2020). She is also co- leading on a forthcoming ethnic minorities and drug use report, all of which feed into changes in UK policy.

Dr Amy Chandler is a sociologist and Senior Lecturer in the School of Health in Social Sciences, University of Edinburgh. She specialises in qualitative, creative approaches to understanding the social, political and cultural contexts of suicide, self-harm, alcohol and drug use. Amy has published widely on the sociology of suicide and self-harm, as well as more broadly sociological approaches to understanding and explaining ‘mental illness’. She also works on qualitative, ethnographic inquiries into drug use and parenting, currently via the ESRC funded ‘Relations’ study, a multidisciplinary study of the ‘governance’ of parental drug use.

Niamh Eastwood is Executive Director of Release. Release is the national centre of expertise on drugs and drugs law. She has extensive experience of service delivery, policy strategy, fundraising and operational development. Niamh is passionate about drug policy reform and believes that the most vulnerable in society are disproportionately impacted upon by the current drug laws.

Dr Emily Finch is Clinical Director for Southwark and for Addictions at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.  She is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at King’s College London. Emily is the chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Addictions Executive and a co-chair of the London Joint Working Group on Hepatitis C. She currently sits on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) as a joint chair of the recovery committee and was recently a member of the NICE guidelines group on safer prescribing.

Professor Magdalena Harris is Professor of Inclusion Health Sociology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and holds an honorary Inclusion Health Consultant position at University College London Hospital NHS Trust. She works in partnership with community organisations, through qualitative methods, peer research & intervention science, to understand and address stigma and health inequity among inclusion health populations. She currently leads two NIHR-funded research projects aiming to improve service provision, health and social outcomes for people who use heroin and crack cocaine, respectively. 

Professor Katy Holloway is a Professor of Criminology in the Faculty of Life Sciences and Education at the University of South Wales. She has conducted studies that have investigated a wide range of drug-related issues. She is currently working on a five-year evaluation of the impact of Minimum Pricing for Alcohol in Wales and has recently been involved in a collaborative project with third sector organisations exploring the lessons that can be learned from COVID-19. She is a member of the Welsh Government’s National Implementation Board for Drug Poisoning Prevention, an Executive Board member of the Dyfodol, IRIS, Gwent and Dyfed Drug and Alcohol Service consortium of substance misuse treatment providers and a member of the Western Bay Drugs Commission.

Martin McCusker is Chair of the Lambeth Client Council in London. The LCC is made up of people who use the Lambeth drug services with the key aim to be involved (meaningfully, non-tokenistically) in the planning, commissioning and delivery of drug services in Lambeth. Martin is also responsible for delivering peer-to-peer naloxone training and needle/syringe programmes.

Anna Millington is founder of HR M2M, a peer-led initiative, mother-to-mother, delivering harm reduction equipment and advocating for mothers who use drugs currently not engaging with the Third sector. 

Dr Polly Radcliffe is a Senior Research Fellow in the National Addiction Centre, King’s College London. She has over twenty years of experience of qualitative research in health and social care that has focused on gender and identity in the context of the criminal justice system, substance use treatment and health care services. Polly is Chief Investigator for the Stepping Stones Study that will include a qualitative longitudinal study of perinatal care pathways for women who use drugs. Polly is also currently lead-researcher at King’s College London for the ESRC funded Relations Study, Governing parental opioid use: a relational ethnography investigating from a family perspective how policies and practices for working with families affected by drug use impact on children and families.

Shayla S. Schlossenberg is the Drugs Services Coordinator at Release, the national centre of expertise in drugs and drug policy in the UK. Shayla has spent the past 8 years researching and working in the substance use field across the US, UK, and China, with a specific focus on developing harm reduction services which serve sex workers as well as people who use drugs.

Oliver Standing (advisor 2018-24) is Director of communications and external affairs for Humankind the national drug and alcohol support charity. He leads the organisation’s internal and external communications work as well as policy and influencing work with national policy makers. Before this, Oliver was Director of Collective Voice, the national alliance of drug and alcohol treatment and recovery charities. He has also previously worked for Adfam (the national charity working to improve support for families affected by drug or alcohol use) for eight years, latterly as Director of Policy and Communications; the Family and Parenting Institute; and Skills for Justice.

April Wareham is a founder member and Director of Working with Everyone, a national service that prioritises lived experience to bring about system/culture change in order to improve outcomes for everyone, particularly the most vulnerable in society. Working with Everyone are experts in working with marginalised communities and facilitate the NHS England forum Citizens on the Margins. April will be inviting two-three members of Working with Everyone to join the LAB meetings.

Other collaborators

‘Ripping up the Rulebook’ also collaborates with professionals from the creative industries.

Susie Miller Oduniyi is Artistic Director of Humourisk,  a company that draws together the talents and skills of under-represented communities and artists to create community powered, theatre, performance and public art. She is lead artist at Shed Life, building an accessible space in Barking to connect through arts and crafts. Susie was Artistic Director of Outside Edge Theatre Company, directing productions and facilitating with people affected by addiction. She co-wrote Brown Bread a dark comic play observing the overdose epidemic. Susie has also created installations and public art including, ‘Sparked Fun Palace’ celebrating the work of Joan Littlewood. Susie also lectures in comedy writing at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Andy Lee is a senior lecturer at the University of the Arts London. His work, as an educator, researcher, speaker and filmmaker focuses on storytelling, emerging technology and transformative digital spaces.