ABOUT YOUR ORGANISATION

The Loop Australia is a not-for-profit organisation established in 2018 to develop the sustainable provision of drug checking (also known as pill testing) services in Australia. We are a sister organisation to The Loop UK which formed in 2013 and has provided drug checking for the public since 2016. The Loop Australia has been a mostly volunteer-based organisation, with teams of chemists, health professionals and researchers based in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The purpose of this role is to oversee the data collection and data reporting requirements of the Victorian Drug Checking Service.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE RESEARCH OFFICER INCLUDE:

• Supporting the DCD and Lead chemist to provide Training and support to service delivery staff in data collection
• Data cleaning and data monitoring
• With supervision from the National Research Lead, report creation after events and at month end for fixed site for:
  • DCS Internal report
  • DH report
• Preparing other regular reports of routine data collection
• Overseeing routine client outcomes data collection including client satisfaction measures
• Database system improvements- work closely with the Dev ops engineer and the DCS leadership team to improve the database in relation to collection of data, coding of report running and data outputs
• Work with the Loop Australia National Research lead on research including obtaining research ethics and coordinating publication of routine service operational data
• Work with the Loop research action group to support research related to drug checking that includes the Victorian service
• Working with the DevOps engineer, prepare the dataset for use in a planned public data dashboard

HOURS

• Variable hours up to 8 hours per week - increase after events and at month end
• Some hours will be onsite at festival and events

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Experience in a research setting that includes obtaining research ethics approval and preparing publications for peer reviewed journals
• Experience working with contemporary data systems
• Demonstrated capacity to work with quantitative data, including understanding of data cleaning processes
• Working knowledge of statistical coding in programs like Stata, R or SPSS (or other alternative programs that can be used to clean and process quantitative data in an efficient and reproducible manner)
• Excellent people skills to enable collaboration across a geographically dispersed team
• Familiarity with Google Suite and Slack communication tools
• Capacity and desire to work on-site at (hot and dusty) music festivals to handle twice daily reporting requirements and ad hoc data queries

HIGHLY DESIRABLE

• Drug literacy - an understanding of unregulated drug markets, key drug-related terminologies, and how drug checking and harm reduction services work
• Experience working in a research environment in the alcohol and other drugs field

More information on the requirements of this position is available in the role description attached below.

You can contact Sarah on [email protected] using the subject line: Research Officer enquiry via EthicalJobs with questions about the role.