Three Things To Read This Week
1. Two Recently Launched Trauma Recovery Centers Are Designed To Work Hand-In-Hand With Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs.
With a mission to help “trauma victims and their families get the help they need and rebuild their lives,” Buffalo’s first Trauma Recovery Center launched earlier this month. As Mark Goshgarian reports for Spectrum News, the “social workers, psychologists, and physicians” who provide care through the trauma recovery center will work in close relationship to a pre-existing hospital-based violence intervention program.
The close connection between the hospital responders and trauma recovery center will mean a seamless transition from providing “crisis response to patients presenting in the Emergency Department for trauma injuries related to violence” to post-release “cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as grief and loss counseling” and “even transportation for any ongoing medical and mental health treatment.”
The University of California Davis Health Center designed a similar model that recently began at its Sacramento hospital. When a victim of a violent crime enters the hospital at the University of California Davis hospital, a violence intervention specialist arrives at their bedside to “make sure these patients know that there is hope and help.” This hospital-based violence intervention is the first step in reducing the likelihood that the patient becomes either a victim or perpetrator of violence in the future.
For CBS News, Ashley Sharp reports that these violence intervention specialists are also able to refer the patients to UC Davis’ newly opened Trauma Recovery Center, which helps “patients who have suffered violent injuries after they are released from the hospital [and] provides long-term therapy and social services, [and] help with food, housing and employment.”
Michele Knight, a clinical psychologist and director of the new Trauma Recovery Center, explained to CBS news that if the goal of the violence intervention specialist is to give “hope and help,” then the goal of the trauma recovery center “is to eliminate barriers…to be able to say, here, I can help you navigate, I can help you get back on your feet.”
For more detail on the recently launched Trauma Recovery Center in Sacramento, CBS News produced this excellent two-minute segment documenting a tour of the center.
Related: In Detroit, “the first Trauma Recovery Center in the state of Michigan” opened this month and will serve as “a one-stop shop for connecting survivors of trauma with mental health services, legal assistance, education, and more free of charge after they leave the hospital.” Meanwhile, in California, the “Trauma Recovery Center at Cal State Long Beach is entering its second decade of service” providing “no-cost comprehensive mental health services to the most underserved victims of crime and violence [and] helping crime victims to retake control of their lives while providing a venue for graduate students to gain essential clinical experiences.”
2. Specialized Overdose Response, Homeless Outreach, and Street Medicine Teams Work Together In Detroit “To Combat Opioid Overdoses.”
In Detroit, Michigan, firefighters are “cross-trained to administer emergency medical care” and put on the frontlines of the city’s opioid crisis. Indeed, last year alone, the “Detroit Fire Department administered lifesaving naloxone 2,400 times.” Nonetheless, city “data shows that many overdose survivors are still at high risk for future overdose mortality.”
That’s why—as Hannah Mackay reports for Detroit News—starting this month, after firefighters “stabilize a patient upon responding to a potential overdose, inform them of the services available, and complete a patient care report,” the fire department will “automatically generate a referral to the city’s new, “first of its kind quick response team.”
That team, which “consists of 12 people, rotating through three eight-hour shifts, seven days a week, [comes] from a variety of backgrounds, including peer recovery coaches, social workers, and community health workers” and responds within three hours if the overdose survivor is taken to the hospital. Or, if the person goes home instead of to the hospital, the team follows-up with the person at their home within 2-4 days of overdose.
The quick response team provides supplies such as “naloxone, HIV testing and fentanyl test kits” and “connects overdose survivors to substance use disorder treatment, housing services, food and clothing assistance, and employment assistance if the survivors are willing.”
One member of the quick response team, who himself is an overdose survivor, told Detroit News that he knows firsthand “the pain and despair that comes with addiction.” He continued:
“And I also know, with the bright people in your corner and the compassion and removing stigma, how it can help somebody transform their lives …. My team and I will work diligently to find these people and meet them right where they’re at and try to assist and help them and make their life as safe as possible until the opportunity comes to where they're ready to make the change."
Many of those who overdose from opioids in Detroit are experiencing homelessness. Fortunately, Nushrat Rahman reports for Bridge Detroit, the city has also recently launched both homeless outreach and street medicine teams who “can also refer residents to the quick response team.”
In addition to responding to calls for assistance from the Detroit Police Department, and connecting with people on streets and sidewalks, the homeless outreach team “visits emergency rooms, bus stops and transit centers — locations where people who are unsheltered may be.” The team operates around the clock, “connecting people to shelters or helping them find permanent housing.”
Meanwhile, the street medicine team, which includes medical professionals and housing specialists, “delivers primary medical care to people facing unsheltered homelessness who have trouble getting to a physical location or struggle to get the prescriptions they need … The outreach marries medical care, while helping people access housing and other wraparound services.”
The existence of these two teams means that it is more likely to identify people at risk of an opioid overdose and make a referral to the quick response team before the next overdose occurs. It also means that when a person who is experiencing homelessness is released from the hospital after an overdose, the homeless outreach and street medicine teams are more likely to be able to track down the person so that the specialized quick response team can provide care and resources to lower the risk of future overdoses.
3. New Polling Shows Robust Support For Cost-Free Narcan In Public Spaces.
Quick Response Teams, like the newly launched team in Detroit, are only able to follow-up with people who survived an overdose because they survived. A major factor in why people survive an opioid overdose—or don’t—comes down to Narcan. Indeed, we mentioned above that Detroit firefighters “administered lifesaving naloxone 2,400 times” last year.
Cities across the country are making Narcan more accessible—not just to first responders and medical professionals, but to the general public through libraries, schools, bars and nightclubs, and even gas stations.
Safer Cities recently conducted a national survey of 2,400 registered voters to gauge public support for increased access to cost-free Narcan in various public spaces. Before asking whether participants “support or oppose making cost-free Narcan available for administration in the following public places,” we informed them:
“Narcan is a medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration designed to rapidly reverse an opioid overdose. People can purchase Narcan directly from their pharmacy without a prescription, but it is too expensive for many people to afford. Some communities with a high number of overdose deaths have provided cost-free Narcan for administration in a number of public places.”
The results show overwhelming support for increasing access to cost-free Narcan at colleges and universities (84%) and in high schools (81%), and very strong support for increased Narcan access at bars and clubs (70%), libraries (69%) and gas stations (68%):
