By Igor Studenkov | For the Bugle
As Geri Silic, a social worker with the Park Ridge Police Department, put it to the Bugle, her employer and several other area organizations didn’t form the Opioid Advisory Group because of anything in particular that was happening in Park Ridge.
The opioid addiction is becoming a growing issue in municipalities large and small, urban and rural; and there was no reason to think that Park Ridge is somehow immune from it. Instead of waiting for something bad to happen, the members of the advisory group want to educate as many people as possible about what opioids are, how they can avoid addiction and how addiction can be treated. And they hope to address the stigma surrounding addiction, since it gets in the way of people discussing the issue openly, finding information they need and reaching out for help.
Silic told the Bugle that the advisory group was formed as the result of a discussion at a meeting of the Park Ridge Health Commission some time last fall.
“It was in one of our meetings, we talked about how police could get more involved in fighting the opioid epidemic,” she recalled.
The Park Ridge Police Department and the Health Commission reached out to Dr. Teri Collins, the Executive Director of Maine Community Youth Assistance Foundation (MCYAF), a non-profit organization that works to prevent drug addiction in Maine Township area youth, and she suggested putting together a group that would look at the way to address opioid abuse. Representatives from Maine Township government’s MaineStay Family Services, the Maine Township’s Recovery Connections program and others joined in as well. All and all, the advisory group currently has seven members.
“We decided, as a group, we know that the problem is national, and we want to be ahead [of it],” Silic said. “We want to be progressive. We want to have awareness, because we know it’s happening. We don’t want to act blind to it.”
Awareness of what opioids are is key, Silic said, noting that, even though she is a social worker, there were many things even she wasn’t aware of.
“When someone says the word ‘opioid’ they usually think of heroin only,” she said. “They don’t understand – I didn’t – how [widespread] opioids, what they are. [It’s important] to find out that it’s Vicodin, that it’s Oxycontin, that it’s common prescriptions, to find out that common prescriptions given to you by a doctor, that they’re so addictive. And to find out that it can happen to people in all social-economic environments.”
And teaching residents how to decrease the chances of opioid addiction is another important part of what the group plans to do.
“What we’re trying to accomplish is to get [families] to understand, and educate families – one home at the time sort of thing – so there’s less access [to opioids] and the risk for addiction is reduced,” Silic said. “So [either] you don’t keep medicine, ‘just in case’ painkillers, or you lock them up safely. We’re trying to bring awareness about how to dispose of them, so they’re not sitting around the house.”
She emphasized that addiction can happen anywhere; and addiction to opioids is no different than any other type of addiction in that regard.
“That is the goal, to help families, so instead of saying – ‘it can’t be me,’ [they say] ‘I don’t want it to be my family, my child.’” Silic said. “Addiction can happen to everyone. You need to reduce access to drugs that are cause drug addiction, and eliminate it.”
The advisory group had its first meeting in November 2017. Since then, most of its meetings have been about gathering ideas from organizations, treatment facilities and recovering addicts. In March 9-10, it did its first major outreach event distributing prescription drug disposal kits. As Silic explained, they reached out to Washington D.C.-based Addiction Policy Forum, which, to her surprised, decided to make Park Ridge one of the pilot sites for its project to distribute prescription drug disposal kits. Although they had less than a week to set up the event, they were able to accomplish it.
Their next big event is going to take place on April 18 at 6 p.m. in front of the Park Ridge City Hall.
“We’re going to have community service providers, local agencies that specialize in addiction,” Silic said. “We’re going to have a table set up where people in the community will have access to prevention resources, education resources”
The advisory group is also working on a program where drug users can come to Park Ridge police station to dispose of opioids or seek treatment without worrying about getting arrested. They will be putting together an informational video to educate residents about prescription drug use, the risks of addiction and how to property dispose of such medicine. And the group is planning to do even more events throughout the year.
“We’re going to have opportunities to educate people, as oppose to just handing [the kits] out where they would [just] go into someone’s bag,” Silic said.