Tuscarawas County Anti-Drug Coalition Meeting
- Zoom
- Friday, August 6, 2021
Present:
- Ron Bond, Tusc Co Farm Bureau
- Robert Bray, WBTC Radio
- Jessica (Sexton) Codd, OhioGuidestone Youth Co-Coordinator
- Christine Daugherty, Director of Nursing, Trinity Twin City
- Phebe Farmer, Youth Representative
- Leah Fry, Youth Representative
- Travis Garrett, Community Member
- Bill Harding, Citizen Member
- Brian Herzog, Tusc Co Public Library
- Al Landis, Tuscarawas County Commissioner
- Connie Limbacher, ADC Secretary
- Kristin Macaulay, Community Mental Health
- Mark Murphy, Tusky Valley Superintendent
- Kathy Neal, Beneath the Shade
- Mary Ann Otte, Citizen Member
- Autumn Poland Tusc Co Health Dept
- Miles Riley, Community Mental Health
- Jodi Salvo, OhioGuidestone Prevention Coordinator
- Gerald Sanders, Citizen Member
- Diana Smith, OhioGuidestone Prevention & 922 Initiative Coordinator
- Kelly Snyder, Tusc Co Health Dept
- Veronica Spidell, ADAMHS Board
- Vicki Yates, Executive Director Senior Center
Meeting Summary:
Jodi Salvo called the Virtual meeting to order at 10:02 AM on Friday, August 6, 2021, with 23 members present. We went around and with attendee introductions. Bill Harding made a motion to accept the June 2021 minutes. Miles Riley seconded and the vote was unanimous.
Committee Reports:
Executive Committee: Steering Committee—No current report.
Youth: Kayli reported that they have 3 possible candidates to replace Brock West as the Youth Rep since he graduated. Phebe Farmer introduced herself and is from Strasburg Youth to Youth (Y2Y). She has been active this summer through booths, parades and even did a podcast with Austin Kamban. Jodi explained the benefits of the podcast and how the Youth Committee fits into the ADC structure. Leah Fry from Strasburg also, was present after the youth report was given. (10:20am). The third student was attending band camp today. This new school year will be a rebuilding year with the Y2Y programs post pandemic. We will be piloting a middles school Y2Y program at Claymont Middle School, because we feel that sometimes trying to get into the high school is a little too late to get high schoolers to change their viewpoints and their mind sets that they developed in middle school. They took a curriculum of “Too Good For Drugs” and are breaking it down into weekly topics. Social/Emotional, Substance Abuse Prevention segemnts and will involve learning games and activities and youth projects on areas of focus. The Youth led programs lost a lot of traction last year mainly due to the pandemic and the students being burnt out on virtual options.
Faith-Based: HOPE Sunday—Jodi reported that HOPE Sunday is August 29th which is two days prior to National Overdose Awareness Day (August 31). There will be two areas of focus for Hope Sunday—1. promote the new Hope Line, which is the single point of contact line for people to get SUD assistance, 2. promote an event in September called Field of Freedom. It is an effort to engage the faith community with community members that might be struggling with mental health and addiction issues. Field of Freedom will be a 3-day event, on the afternoons of September 17-19, with speakers & bands. The Hope Sunday video is being developed and it will invite the faith community to go to the event. The Friday night will be a call for churches & volunteers to come and get prepared/trained for the work that will happen over the weekend, Saturday will be the event itself, then Sunday will be more of a celebration, a time to come together and become energized to continue in efforts. Volunteers are needed for Hope Sunday efforts. – pass out packet- which will include flash drive, bulletin, pastor scripts and flyer about Field of Freedom event. This is our 4th HOPE Sunday. Al Landis was instrumental in getting this started with a conversation he overheard about allowing a drug overdose person to “Let them die”. The first year was a video to reduce the stigma and that opened up our relationship with the churches having speakers that were able to come into the churches or even allowing us to provide them with our resources. The second year was for the churches to reach out into the community and last years was showing love and people trying to accept them where they are and do “life” with them. This year it is driving churches to take one step further. It has been progressive and this is the where the county-wide revival is happening. We did receive grant funding from the Ohio Attorney Generals Faith Based Community Initiatives for HOPE Sunday, Project Hope and Field of Freedom. All funding has to be spent by September 30th. Connie reported that at least 9 other volunteers are involved with the calling and leg work. This year we are focusing on getting more of Carroll County involved so Gerald probably has about 100 churches to contact himself. We will be putting together the packets for the churches with the USB drive in it. The video is NOT released to anyone until the churches show it on August 29th, then it will be posted publicly at noon on that day. The bulletins will be provided with prayer requests and community resources to include the HOPE Line number. We have ordered 8,000 bulletin inserts and hope to have them ready to pack and deliver next week. Things are running behind because of Covid quarantining part of our video crew. Any organization with literature wanting distributed, we are providing a packet of resources from the social service agencies. For Field of Freedom there is also a call for agencies to provide booths with resources.
Marijuana Committee: Jodi reported that October 5th PAC event “Clearing the Air”. Ty Sells will be speaking at two assemblies. One to all county 8th grade classes and the other to a high school grade of district choice as the PAC capacity is 1000. We are looking to livestream back to the schools. Thank you to Dean Bielski for providing the PAC for us. Chris Lane, our business sector rep, is working on the fundraising for this event, which is approximately $7,500. He is reaching out to businesses to get their sponsorship to help with the costs. The committee is also looking at providing an adult program for parents that evening which will also be hosted by Kent State. We cannot record these but can livestream events. The Sheriff will be introducing Ty and program at the assemblies. Jodi spoke with our School Counselor Association and they will help promote this event to adults & the schools. We will want agencies to provide booths with their information that evening. Tuscarawas County Fair: Diana has been working diligently to get everything for our 2 booths. We have the ADC booth under the grandstand & we have a marijuana booth that she is looking to find the right spot where we just have the survey to collect marijuana data. This data is very important to view how the community sees marijuana and how we should develop our strategies to educate them around these misconceptions. People usually play a game and get a prize if they fill out a survey. Connie will send out the volunteer link next week for anyone who wants to volunteer to work a shift. They will receive free fair admission and an ADC T-shirt to wear. Efforts to educate city/village councils and township trustees. This is an ongoing effort by the committee to create an educational marijuana presentation to our elected officials. We would like to see Prevention Action Alliance help us attack this issue. Since dispensaries have more than doubled—this is the game plan used to gear up for recreational marijuana. There is a lot of activity and work to be done by the Marijuana Committees, if anyone is not already committed to a committee—this committee is looking for more active members. If interested, please let Connie, Jodi or Kerry know. Ohio Ballot Initiative for recreational marijuana legalization in 2022: A ballot initiative was just rejected yesterday Attorney General David Yost yesterday to legalize recreation marijuana to regulate marijuana like alcohol. It is clear that they will be resubmitting. They are looking to flip the medical dispensaries into recreational dispensaries. So some of the work of the committee is to reach out to our local elected officials to educate them on what this really is. House Bill 210 & 382: There are 2 house bills out there. HB 382 is not in committee yet. Legislatures want to legalize so that they would be able to control. Ballot initiatives are written into the Ohio Revised Code, where legislature is not. Once legalized—potency goes up and really effects our youth in many ways. Al also reported that even of Fox news-Denver is spending more money on the homeless population than they are on K-12 which goes back to since legalizing recreational marijuana—homeless population has gone way up and it even brings more homeless people from other states. We can’t sit back and wait and really need to make ourselves known. We really need volunteers in this committee!
Alcohol Committee: Veronica (10:40AM) reported that the committee will now be working on the upcoming “Talk, We Hear You Campaign”. A press release will go out on August 16th. This is a SAMHSA Campaign. It’s to help parents talk to their youth about not using alcohol, and the importance of those conversations. There is a new version of the app that has a lot of resources and PSA’s. School Sports program ads: There will be ads in the school football programs and we have aligned these ads with our campaign so we are consistent with our message.
Media Committee: Michaela is still out on maternity leave and is really missed! Jodi reported that the efforts that are going on is the Alcohol “Talk, We Hear You Campaign” press release, the Project Hope(the silhouette program like last year)/Music on the Square that is happening August 21st at 4pm. This is to benefit both the Addiction Task Force and the ADC. The commissioners will read two proclamations there. 1. for Overdose Awareness Day August 31st & 2. National Recover Month. The mayors of our communities are participating. The Silhouettes will be going up. One is black—signifying those who have passed away in our county; gray for those that overdosed but did not pass away, and a yellow one that says there is hope of a parent and a child with a yard sign in front of them promoting the HopeLine phone number for one call access to a navigator that can connect people to the best, most appropriate level of care, whether CMH, OhioGuidestone or wherever. It is not only for someone in active addiction but also a loved one that can call and get help and assistance. There are yard signs for the HOPE Line for anyone wanting. Other press releases and information media going out is on HOPE Sunday (August 29) press releases & Field of Freedom (Sept 17-19), Clear the Air Marijuana Education program October 5th. Please like and share ADC Facebook and podcast efforts.
Prescription Drug Committee Jodi reported in Jeff’s absence introducing Vicki Yates, Director of the Senior Center, where we had an event and how the committee is trying to be a little more mindful providing education and information to our seniors, by creating a “Mind Your Meds” messaging for seniors so they can be aware and have access to all our resources. In addition, how they can have conservations with their grandchildren and not keeping their meds on their countertops, etc. We will have a booth at “Picnic in the Park” on August 24th from 9-1 we could probably use one volunteer. Brochures are completed, we ordered more of the lock boxes and we have started reloading our community partners across the county with the deactivation bags. There are small table displays for deactivation bags if anyone want one.
Tobacco Committee: Community survey–Autumn reported that this is not the long brutal survey that was put out earlier. This one is quick and helps guide us in the new grant year to what the community feels are the tobacco issues. Need 250 completed. Connie will send out to all ADC members and friends next week so they can do and share. Dover Council-Quit Line POS posting: Jodi & Autumn went to city council and asked them to put the required postings Point of Sale Quit Line information did get a little bit of push back but have come to an agreement that they will make a resolution so just waiting on final word of that and will get the stickers out to the retailers in Dover giving people access to the information of the free services. Dover School Policy Update: they have updated their policy, and by doing that they get financial help by doing so. Signs will be going up at the schools. Community Wide Project: Excited to get feedback on what people want as this project which is funded through the state. At the next upcoming meeting, that is what we will be focusing on.
922 Initiative—Jodi explained that this committee originated with the Addiction Task Force. It is to bring the leaders of this area together. Diana is a leader in that community and is chair of this committee. The committee is trying to build & get information out to area agencies and residents. Launch Silhouette campaign & mailers—the mailers were sent out with the HOPE line on it. A set of silhouettes will be put up this weekend and yard signs are throughout the Twin City area that have the Hope Line on it. Resources Day: the community will be doing another day at the craft show, which is the 2nd Saturday in October. The organizers of the craft show did agree to partner with them. They are also allowing a few speakers to talk about recovery and have music. Discussed possibly having Austin Kamban. Leaders of Tomorrow: Diana talked with Twin City Hospital & was able to share what this committee is about, as well as about the ADC and the Addiction Task Force. Was very well received and it was information they did not have. Christine Daugherty was introduced and her goal is to get more people involved with the community. Anyone wanting to be a part of this committee please let Diana know.
Old Business: None
New Business:
Suicide Coalition: We have been approached to consider bringing the Suicide Coalition under the umbrella of the ADC. There is two parts of the coalition. 1. Survivors and 2. Support Group—those family members that are left behind. The Support Group is also doing a lot of work in the community where they have a walk and a remembrance day each day and they were trying to do the fundraising and planning of that. There was kind of an attempt of a coalition and the leadership has changed a couple of times recently so the one thing the coalition can provide is a space and a structure for the Suicide Coalition under our umbrella. We have the strength of having a strong media presence, our website for promoting, providing & educating awareness. We are a very nice conduit to make this happen. What it would look like is we would have another committee. We might need to talk about branding and possibly, our renaming. The Suicide Coalition will provide a chairperson for this committee, Gwen Malcuit from Community Mental Health (CMH). The Suicide Coalition has a stronger presence in the schools with the counselors and when the ADC was born back in 2011, the world looked very different. We now have so many community issues that they all seem to get tangled up like a ball of yarn. You cannot really separate mental health, addiction, etc. They are all community issues. We would like a vote in September. The Steering Committee meets on Monday and will make some recommendations and we will send out two weeks prior to our September meeting to vote on it to see if membership is comfortable adding in another standing committee. Thoughts of can our organization expand more than it is? Longer monthly meetings? Etc. Discussion was held. Member Information Forms will be sent out for people to fill out to be able to vote. November 6th will be their annual walk to which either way, the ADC will definitely help them this year with that. Tuscarawas County Fair: September 20th-26th. Volunteer link will be sent out next week for volunteers to sign up at both booths.
Organization Share: Miles reported the update of Community Mental Health rebranding to Spring Vale—only a name change. It will be a gradual change of logo, email, etc. Kelly shared regarding Safe Communities Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over is at the Tuscarawas Valley Farmers Market from 3-7 on August 25th and Community Baby Shower for Parent or caregivers on October 16th at New Pointe Church. Kayli shared a Thank You from Brock West our graduating Youth rep.; Travis Garrett shared Recovery Softball is on Thursdays 6-9pm.
Volunteer hours need turned in immediately as Jodi’s grant report is due next week for February 1 to July 31st. Any time you spend doing anything. We need these for match for continued funding.
Kristin made a motion to adjourn and all voted yes at 11:28 AM.
Next Board Meeting will be held on Friday, September 3 from 10:00-11:30 am. It is to be a hybrid meeting.
