LEWISTON — Community groups, police, health care providers and others will hold a community forum Thursday to talk about opioid use and addiction.
The forum is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Lewiston Middle School, and will feature two panels, a Q&A session, community resource information and on-site counselors for anyone who is upset by the discussion and needs support.
The forum comes as part of a unique partnership involving 12 local organizations, including Tri-County Mental Health Services, the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office, Lewiston and Auburn police, Healthy Androscoggin, Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.
That partnership, supported by a two-year, $93,000 grant from the Maine Health Access Foundation, has allowed the disparate organizations to coordinate on opioid issues. They are, for example, creating a single, universal release form that allows every organization in the partnership to share information about a person to get them help.
In the past, every organization required its own release form and a person seeking help would have to sign multiple releases in order for information to be shared.
“It protected people from stigma, which is so pervasive, and from being treated differently than others around them, but it also creates huge barriers in our ability to provide quality, comprehensive care,” said Catherine Ryder, executive director of Tri-County Mental Health.
The partnership has also helped area doctors to create uniform prescribing, drug screening and other guidelines for patients needing opioids. It’s prompted free training for health-care providers interested in prescribing Suboxone, a medication often used to help people addicted to opioids. And it’s led to a project that will map drug overdoses in the area to help officials find hot spots.
Thursday’s forum will include a panel of six people who will give an overview of the partnership and talk about addiction and recovery, opioids from a police perspective, addiction prevention and the addiction treatment resources that are available.
A second panel will feature three people who have experienced addiction. They will be joined by family members who can talk about their perspective.
For more information on the community forum, call Marcella Bernard at 207-783-9141, ext. 158, or email her at mbernard@tcmhs.org.
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