Helping Eliminate the Opioid Crisis One Town at a Time

Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Angelo Valente, Executive Director, Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey, to discuss the different ways they are working to help eliminate the opioid crisis in New Jersey.

7/30/18 #2155

Excerpt:

"Back again by popular demand, our good friend Angelo Valente, Executive Director, Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey. Good to see you, buddy. Good to see you, Steve. Let's get right into this. You have a series of town halls. They're called Knock Out Opioid Abuse Town Hall Meetings. Together with the folks at Horizon Foundation for New Jersey? Yes, and they've been... Talk about it. ...Very successful over the last year the horizon foundation for New Jersey and the partnership have teamed up and we've had a series of town halls where we brought together local experts, folks from each of the counties in New Jersey, ranging from prosecutors to medical professionals... people in law enforcement, people in treatment and prevention, and what we did is we gave folks throughout the state an opportunity to come to understand how this issue affects them locally and also what resources are available. One of the things we found was that there were many people that came to the meetings. We had about 14,000 that participated throughout the state and what we realized is that there were a lot of people that didn't know the resources that were available right in their backyard, so that was really an important part of it. But also, Steve, what was really crucial was highlighting some of the best practices, looking at... Such as? Break it down. Well, I'll give you an example. We have local law enforcement... Let's put up the website, team. I know you always are ahead of me on this, as to where folks can get more information on this. We have local law enforcement offices in the state where if a person wants to go and voluntarily turn over all of their drugs, they can get treatment. That's something that's very unique in New Jersey. We have programs like a van that goes around to shopping centers and provides information to residents throughout the state. We have programs like recovery coaches, where if a person is has experienced an overdose and they wind up an emergency room, there's a person there who's been through that experience and is there to help that person get into treatment. And those are the kind of programs that we wanted to highlight and share. So those programs that were then replicated throughout the state. What about parents? because that whole initiative that... Is it fifth grade? The Fifth Grade Parent Alert is… What is that? Is one of the programs that the partnership has, which directly addresses the role of parents. And we know that the role of parents is crucial, especially when it comes to the opioid epidemic. One of the programs we've been dealing with through the 5th..."