Help Me Grow and Paige Staggs, a supervisor and home visitor for the program, highlighted a new program the organization is starting during a Highland County Drug Abuse Prevention Coalition meeting Wednesday.
Staggs said the program a new child welfare program that will start accepting clients or children that are 2 years old or younger and possibly serve them until they’re 5 years old.
“We’re kind of moving from that prevention piece into the intervention piece, but being able to serve those families because we see a need for it,” she said. “Governor DeWine is really good about giving us funding. He knows that it’s an important program, that it’s something that all of these families are benefiting from. I personally, when I first had my baby wish I would have been in this program because I’ve learned a lot just from implementing the curriculum.”
Bill Showman, manager of prevention and evaluation services at the Paint Valley Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health (ADAMH) Board, said during the meeting that he received an email from one of the pharmacies saying that one of the Med Collect Boxes has already been filled and a second container has been installed.
Creed Culbreath, president of the Highland County Drug Abuse Prevention Coalition, said that not only is the coalition happy about the med collect boxes, but also the sheriff.
“A pharmacy told me that someone had come in and said they were being moved from Suboxone to a new, medically-assisted treatment, had a lot of doses of Suboxone, and didn’t know what to do,” he said. “They were so thankful that they didn’t have to drive a long way or hunt and find out where they could bring them.”
A representative for Senator Rob Portman, Nan Cahill, the senator’s southwest district director, was present at this month’s meeting to highlight Portman’s new Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA 3.0) which he introduced in April.
In other news, Showman said the coalition will begin nominating officers for the organization in September because of people missing during the summer months.
He also said he will be doing a PAX Tools training at Lynchburg-Clay in September for bus drivers and cafeteria staff, which is the community companion for the PAX Good Behavior Game. He said the Fairfield schools will be doing a PAX Heroes program in September as well, which is a continuation of the PAX program.
“PAX Good Behavior Game addresses building behavior as a skill set at the universal level where PAX Heroes, it reaches out more towards kids that they’ve identified as your tier 2, tier 3, kids that have more significant behavioral health problems or educational needs,” Showman said. “That’s exciting to see they’re asking for that.”
Roger Cheesbro, the president of FRS Transportation, was not present at the meeting, but asked Culbreath to say that the Massie Center for men has beds available.
Culbreath highlighted for REACH for Tomorrow that Nicole’s 28th Chapter opened in Greenfield. He said it has a capacity for 10 women and as of last week had five women there.
The next Highland County Drug Abuse Prevention Coalition meeting will take place on Wednesday, July 21, from 12:30 to 2 p.m.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
