A new outreach team has been set up to target the street drinkers and drug-users who hang out in the Fairfield recreation ground and Kingston's other open spaces.

The team, based at drug project Kaleidoscope, will start work from Monday, February 10, and will be headed by Amira Barham, originally from Israel's West Bank.

They will offer advice, information and clean needles and encourage people to get further help from local treatment services.

The initiative follows calls last year for a response to the problem of people drinking and taking drugs in the Fairfield.

In July, two schoolgirls from nearby St Joseph's primary found used syringes in the park.

In October, 18 people were arrested in a major covert operation against drug dealers in the area.

Initially consisting of two workers, the team will look to recruit more manpower from within Kaleidoscope's existing staff.

Funded by Kingston's Drug Action Team, the workers will operate in the evening in the Fairfield, the Cambridge Road Estate, around Surbiton Station and other drug hot spots.

Kaleidoscope has been pushing for an outreach service for three years. Director the Reverend Martin Blakebrough said he hoped the service would have a positive effect on crime by identifying drug-users before their habit gets out of control.

He urged residents to contact the project if they knew of street drinkers or drug-users in the borough.

Team manager Amira Barham will meet with residents' associations and the police to make sure they are kept informed. She said the service would target those people not using existing treatment agencies and would help to reduce public anxiety about drug users.

"If we are on the street I'm hoping the public will approach us as well. I'm hoping that it will open up avenues of discussion," she said.

Of her experiences on the West Bank, she added: "It is just the place where you just have to be adaptive and flexible. Life changes by the minute. It's an amazing place to be, you can't plan the next half hour."

January 31, 2003 10:30