St. Charles County Government, MO Prosecuting Attorney, 23 Feb 2017

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From YouTube: C.R.U.S.H - St. Charles County Government, MO

Description

C.R.U.S.H (Community Resources United to Stop Heroin) is an initiative established May 2015 by the Office of St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar. The initiative involves schools, law enforcement, treatment providers, community leaders and health care organizations to address the growing heroin epidemic.

C.R.U.S.H plans and implements events and programs that target education and prevention of substance abuse in their community. These include:

Teen Drug Summit: Reaching over 350 6-8th grade students on the dangers of heroin and empowering students to make decisions that result in a drug-free life.
School-based Education: Communicating through a classroom setting and/or assemblies the importance of abstaining from drug use and underage drinking.
For more information, please call Leslie Knight at 636-949-7900, ext. 3625 or email lknight@sccmo.org.

Mission:

Reaching people before they use and guiding users to get the help they need.

A

Hi I'm Tim Lamar prosecuting attorney for st. Charles County in my job, I, unfortunately see the results of heroin addiction I witnessed what it does to abusers to their families and to others who come into contact with those addicted. That's why my office started the crush initiative in May of 2015 crush stands for community resources United to stop heroin. It involves schools, law enforcement, treatment providers, community leaders and health care organizations that together address the growing heroin epidemic.

A

Our goal is to reach people before they use guide users to get the help they need and to crush the stigma. That heroin is only an urban and inner-city issue. Our office, along with the National Council on alcoholism and drug abuse, provide the leadership and resources behind crush each.

B

Month, our member organizations meet to discuss the epidemic and the pressing issues surrounding it. The meetings allow us an opportunity to discuss things like trends. It allow us to plan for activities like teen drug summit and we create different subcommittees and ways for us to communicate to the public. What we're trying to do with the car organization as.

C

Treatment providers, what we provide to crush in the general public is information and education on drugs that are out in the community plus statistical information and data, that's going on within the county and the United States as a whole. For instance, we know that when someone overdoses why someone dies is because they have respiratory issues and aren't breathing properly as treatment providers, we work to stabilize individuals before they go back out into the community.

C

We also work with a holistic model in regards to working, not just with the individuals but with families and the community, to make sure they have the greatest rate of success when they leave treatment along.

D

With meeting on a monthly basis to tackle the heroin issues head-on in the community, the crush program plans and implements some very powerful programs that raise awareness and bring students and parents face to face with the folks who work with the tragedy of heroin. Everyday and I. Think these real-life scenarios a chance to see up close and personal. How it affects people really helps bring our kids and parents, level of awareness sky, high, crushes.

A

Biggest event is the teen drug summer, a day-long event which reaches over three hundred and fifty-six through eighth grade students on the dangers of heroin guest speakers, including law enforcement treatment providers and recovering addicts, educate and empower students to make decisions that result in a drug-free life. The students they go back to their schools and share what they've learned with their peers I. Think.

E

The importance of this summit is to show kids like me, which 13 that drugs like heroin is very like impacting to life, and it is very dangerous and that it can take away lives of our loved ones. The presentations really impacted us because, like it puts us in that place where they are and what happened with him and like it, shows us and tells us that we don't want to be a part of that. We want to be successful. We want to have a good career throughout.

A

The school year crush members participate in classroom or assembly presentations to communicate the importance of abstaining from drug use and underage drinking. They also speak to groups throughout the community about the.

F

Epidemic, it's always a unique experience when I come to the schools, because the kids are so engaged and talk, especially about prescription medications and heroin, and it's a tough topic. They have a lot of influences in their lives that you've got so many people saying so many different things, friends and and and the media, but always tell them hey.

F

You are the best advocate for yourself, think for yourself and think about those choices, because the choices that you make directly affect you and the people around you so some for you to make those healthy non destructive decisions, st.

G

Charles County ambulance, district paramedics truly are on the forefront of this epidemic in st.

G

Charles County, and we don't think epidemic is too strong a word to use whenever you think about the fact that call volume for prescription, opioid and heroin overdoses has more than doubled in the last eight years and last year we lost more than 50 people in this community to this terrible problem, which is why we are focusing on the prevention side of things getting out to groups in our community parents, students, teachers, everybody to talk about how this addiction takes hold and ways to link them with resources to get help.

G

If that is an issue community.

A

Organizations are also an important part of the crush initiative talking.

H

For long a stop heroine in memory of Niki Vania is a nonprofit organization that was started after the passing of our daughter, Nikki bina. She was 20 years old and she died January 3rd 2013 from a heroin overdose. We were asked to be a part of crush I. Think because of the fact that we are at such a grassroots organization. It's really something very basic. It's about walking in the community and very bright color shirts to raise awareness. We have 9 social media pages now that there walks all throughout the country.

H

As far as New Hampshire, we do a lot of outreach programs in addition to participating with the teen summit, which the crush organization has not done for 3 years. We do a lot of educational speaking in schools to talk to kids about not even once about why you really don't ever like. Never ever ever get involved with this drug.