At the Crossroads Comic: A Route to Hepatitis C Treatment

Making an educational comic book for our community

In June 2019, the Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) program at North Richmond Community Health published an educational comic book about Hepatitis C.

North Richmond Community Health’s Outreach Worker Stuart Armstrong spent several months working with clients to create a health resource that their clients could actually relate to. “Over the years, I have found that so many resources on Hepatitis C are made for clients, but do not involve clients in their development”, said Stuart. “I decided I wanted to provide an opportunity for clients to create a resource that demonstrates the journey from Hepatitis C transmission to treatment using real-life scenarios that clients can relate to.”

The comic was created by taking smartphone photos of clients acting out a client’s experience with Hepatitis C. The clients found that acting out scenarios for the comic reinforced their knowledge around Hepatitis C and made it relevant to their own experiences.

We have clients with real-life stories that’ll have you on the floor laughing and at other times could bring a tear to your eye. Unfortunately, most of their stories will never be told as our clients are largely voiceless in the wider community. We hope this project, that was created with just a smartphone and computer, can inspire other harm reduction workers to educate and collaborate with their clients in a similar way.

Thank you to Duane, Julia, Simon and Stu for participating in this project.

At the crossroads: A route to hepatitis C treatment will undergo a review before each print run to confirm that any data included within the resource is up to date and any treatment-related information is in line with current prescribing practices.