Alaskan communities are rallying together to combat an opioid epidemic and residents of the Kenai Peninsula will gather tomorrow at the first of two meetings for that very reason.
Shari Conner is the Prevention Coordinator for the community based organization Change 4 the Kenai. She says tomorrow’s town hall meeting will begin the discussion with specialists on opioids presenting evidence of the issue locally.
Conner: “We will have panelists from different agencies throughout the area, OCS, adult probation, Wildwood Pre-trial, Alaska State Troopers, treatment providers, recovery community, will be involved in that panel.”
She says the aim is to present the problem, get a feel for how much of the community recognizes the warning signs, and potentially generate ideas for solutions.
Then on March 26, the town hall meeting will delve deeper into the problem, with guests from the Alaska AIDS Assistance Association, or Four A’s.
Conner: “We will have some prevention strategies, we will talk about harm reduction and what it looks like for us, what our capacity is for our community in treating our heroin problem. We’ll have the Four A’s here from Anchorage, they’ll talk about their harm reduction process and their programs in Anchorage, what that looks like for needle exchange and for a reduction of Hepatitis C in our community.”
The town hall meetings start at 5:30 pm on May 19 and May 26, both Thursdays, at the Kenai Challenger Learning Center.
