no more teachers' dirty looks

	no more teachers' dirty looks
	no more teachers' dirty looks
	Donna Thornton is the adherence support worker at east London's Globe Centre. "It's no use lecturing people like school skivers," she says, in the first of a series on how to help people choose a treatment that suits them
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	Basing adherence support in a hospital is a bit like basing a truancy officer in a school: the people who could most benefit from the support are the least likely to come through the doors. As a former 'avoider' of many a school lesson, I would have benefited from a support service if it had been located in the local shopping centre where I spent those school days...
	Years down the line, I now work as an adherence support worker. Formerly a nurse in a hospital, I now feel my work is very different. I spend a great deal of my day in the drop-in area chatting to people over coffee and a cigarette. The informal atmosphere allows for frank discussions surrounding the highs and lows of combination therapy. Adhering to HIV drug regimes is difficult. Timings can feel rigid, side effects debilitating, the outcome uncertain. If adherence support relates only to how to pop pills then no one will ever achieve 100 per cent. It's a lifestyle issue. Many people first see our daycare team about issues unrelated to their medication: housing, mental
	health, drug and drink problems, relationship breakdowns or benefit