Capital Area Human Services (CAHS) announced that they will host a community organizational meeting to implement outreach strategies to combat opioid abuse.
The community meeting is scheduled on Friday, June 23, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at the Capital Area Human Services campus, 4615 Government Street, Building 2, Room 200, in Baton Rouge. The meeting is dedicated to creating response methods for combating opioid abuse, through a national grass roots program called Facing Addiction.
"We invite all community groups, non-profit organizations, impacted individuals and their families, healthcare agencies, the recovery community, religious leaders, providers, law enforcement, emergency personnel, and neighborhood activists to get involved. Together we will establish a much-needed grassroots response plan to opioid abuse," said CAHS Executive Director Jan Kasofsky, PhD.
Recently, Baton Rouge was selected as one of 15 communities in the nation to create grassroots response plans with Facing Addiction, a national non-profit organization dedicated to combating the drug abuse crisis in America. Leading the opioid abuse grassroots effort session will be Jan Laughinghouse, PhD, CAHS Program Director for Addiction Recovery Services.
CAHS actively sought the Facing Addiction technical grant because of the ongoing local negative impact of drug abuse, and the agency's record of establishing community coalitions and leading stakeholders to localized solid responses.
Facing Addiction is working with CAHS and its community partners to secure increases in localized funding to adequately address the crisis; train advocates on proper organizational and advocacy techniques to reform their community’s response; invest time and resources in communication opportunities with elected officials and other policy makers; provide media guidance to garner press and broadcast coverage to further highlight the solutions to the problem; and develop political strategies and aid community stakeholders in the development of an overarching “campaign strategy.” Speaking briefly during the session will be Facing Addiction Director of Outreach and Engagement, Michael Green, on the goals of the efforts.
Since 2004, the Behavioral Health Collaborative, led by Capital Area Human Services, has been responsible for many successful initiatives including police de-escalation training for over 1,000 officers; prenatal substance abuse screening and intervention; integrated disaster response team development and deployment; jail in-reach placing social workers in the East Baton Rouge Parish prison and re-entry connection to treatment services; and crisis systems development and implementation responses to disasters, including the highly successful Mental Health Emergency Room Extension (MHERE) at Earl K. Long Regional Medical Center.