This is a resend of the November ODCP Newsletter due to a server error.
Welcome to the eighth edition of the bimonthly newsletter from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR), Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP).
If you know someone who would like to receive future issues, please email Dora.L.Radford@wv.gov.
People who do not have addiction will never fully understand what it is like to be addicted, and thank goodness for that. As much as we try to understand, the disconnect between what we think being addicted is like and the actual experience of addiction will always be there. In that gap arises the opportunity for significant misunderstandings about what people with addiction need to get better and how to best help them.
From new medications being developed to new methods of scanning the brain, we also have a rapidly growing knowledge of what works in addiction and what doesn’t. Many of the things that we thought were effective even 5 years ago may not now be best practice. In this ODCP newsletter we examine and debunk many of the misconceptions around addiction from a variety of perspectives to help us understand what is effective and what is not so we know how best to help our friends and family with addiction to a life of successful recovery.
SAVE A LIFE DAY 2021 HIGHLIGHT
Wetzel Chronicle - In Worst Year for Overdose, 17 W.Va. Counties Host Largest Free Naloxone Day
On September 2, 2021, 17 West Virginia counties came together to host the largest day of free naloxone distribution in the state. West Virginia lost 1,349 family members to fatal overdoses last year, which was the first year the state lost an average of three residents a day. On Thursday, seventeen counties hosted free naloxone booths across 74 locations, including churches, clinics, colleges, gas stations, parks, supermarkets, and even a pet shop. Participants in Wetzel County received one Narcan kit (2 doses), education, medication disposal bags, resources, and more.
WV Collegiate Strategic Prevention Framework Partnerships for Success
The Change We Seek: A Podcast from a Prevention Perspective focuses on systems, barriers, protective and risk factors, and always views these issues from a strengths-based perspective. The podcast is sponsored by the WV Collegiate Strategic Prevention Framework Partnership for Success Initiative (C-SPF-PFS). The WV C-SPF-PFS initiative’s overall goal is to prevent the onset and reduce the progression of substance misuse and its related problems among higher education students (ages 18 and older) in southern West Virginia. The federal grant was awarded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to Marshall University’s Center of Excellence for Recovery.
Each campus participating in the C-SPF-PFS project has a student leader that is a part-time employee of Marshall University Research Corporation. The student leader is enrolled as a full-time student on his or her participating campus and helps collect data, review campus policies and reports, receives training in prevention, hosts campus prevention events and activities, and the podcast, just to name a few of the responsibilities. The C-SPF-PFS has student leaders at Concord University, Marshall University, Southern WV Community and Technical College, WV School of Osteopathic Medicine, WV State University, and WVU Institute of Technology.
We hope that with our project and this podcast, we can begin to cultivate a culture of prevention on college campuses across the state. We are student leaders who will support, enhance, and build prevention infrastructure.
WV Collegiate Strategic Prevention Framework Partnerships for Success student leaders will be discussing issues, strategies, and evidence-based practices for prevention on college campuses.
Jobs & Hope West Virginia Transition Agents often speak to employers about hiring individuals in recovery from substance use disorder (SUD) and becoming a second chance or “recovery friendly” employer. The role of a Transition Agent includes helping to decrease stigma and removing barriers, especially in the workplace. Often, the topic of SUD evokes employer misconceptions that need to be dispelled, such as poor behavior, theft, and missing work. While stigma can cause these myths, they can be combated by Transition Agents who educate employers on the truth about potential employees in recovery from SUD.
Jon Dower, CADC, CCS, CIP, SAP, CTP
Director of Recovery Services
Ascension Recovery Services
While many individuals are just learning of recovery housing, often referred to as sober living homes, recovery residences, or Oxford Houses, this concept has been present in the United States since the creation by the Washington Temperance Society in the 1840s (NARR, 2012). The concept of recovery residences attaches to the social model construct and prioritizes a community atmosphere, peer-to-peer support, structure, accountability, and an illicit drug and alcohol-free environment. Though recovery residences often face resistance through misconceptions, recovery residences provide an essential service to communities. They serve the most vulnerable and disenfranchised, offering a safe, stable, illicit drug and alcohol-free living environment to initiate and sustain recovery.
Dr. Jeremy Hustead, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry
Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute
WVU Medicine
Medication assisted treatment (MAT): The very mention of this topic is likely to spur responses across the emotional spectrum from extremely positive to pure hatred. The order of conversation topics to now avoid are religion, politics, and medications to treat opioid addiction. While it may prove an uncomfortable topic to discuss, it is imperative to do so given West Virginia’s opioid epidemic.
West Virginia has consistently led the country in overdose death rates, including a nearly 50% increase in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We lost 1,377 citizens to drug overdoses, 1,179 of which involved an opioid and 1,095 specifically to synthetic opioids (mainly fentanyl). This article attempts to clarify common misconceptions with opioid addiction treatment and why medications are used to treat this deadly disease.
The ATLAS Survey recently opened for 10/28/2021 to 1/28/2022. Addiction providers can help our patients and loved ones find the information they need by submitting it for your facility! Contact the ATLAS Help Desk to get your facility’s link: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/6296448/ATLAS-Help-Desk
Participating in ATLAS demonstrates a facility’s commitment to transparency and continuous quality improvement.
• ATLAS allows treatment facilities to ethically market their programs and services to the public.
• ATLAS can be used to identify areas for quality improvement and connect with resources.
• Providers can leverage participation in ATLAS in conversations with payers about value-based contracts, as ATLAS promotes alignment with industry best practices shown to reduce cost and improve patient outcomes and experience of care.
November 3-4, 2021 Veteran's Caregiver's Awareness Summit
DHHR's Bureau for Behavioral Health and the state's regional Veterans Centers will be holding a two-day virtual summit on November 3 and 4 which will include a virtual resource fair from 12 to 1 PM November 4. To share programs or resources with veterans and their families, VA staff and others, please reach out to Andrea St. Clair at AndreaStClair@va.gov or Deanna Stump at Deanna.Stump@va.gov.
November 3, 2021
Recovery is Real - Healing the Brain
The State Opioid Response (SOR) Team will host a series of training sessions for the upcoming grant year, with details to come. SAMHSA’s Opioid Response Network (ORN) will provide speakers/presenters for this series and registration details are pending.
November 4-6, 2021
WV Counseling Association (WVCA) Fall 2021 Conference
Share your talents and expertise with other West Virginia mental health professionals! The WVCA Fall 2021 Conference will take place November 4 – 6, 2021 via Zoom and is offered to West Virginia Counselors, other mental health professionals, and Counseling students as an opportunity to share information, present ideas, demonstrate techniques, network, and to develop personally and professionally.
WE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE WORK YOU ARE DOING!
The purpose of this newsletter is to highlight successful responses to substance use disorder (SUD) across the state. If your organization would like to share the work being done in your region for upcoming newsletters, please email Jessica.N.Smith@wv.gov.
https://dhhr.wv.gov/Office-of-Drug-Control-Policy
Our mailing address is:
1 Davis Square, Suite 100, East, Charleston, WV 25301
