KDHE Awards $900K to County Health Departments to Address Opioid Crisis

TOPEKA – The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has awarded approximately $900,000 to county health departments for implementation of community-level responses to the opioid crisis in Kansas. The funding for these efforts is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Opioid Overdose Crisis Response Cooperative Agreement which was awarded to KDHE earlier this fall.

The county health departments receiving awards are Barton, Crawford, Finney, Franklin, Geary, Harvey, Johnson, Labette, Mitchell, Neosho, Pottawatomie, Rawlins, Reno, Riley, Sedgwick and Stevens.

“We are pleased to partner with 16 county health departments to prevent the problems the abuse of opioids causes in Kansas communities,” said Cristi Cain, KDHE’s Director of Local Health Program. “A local response is critical to addressing opioids and other substance abuse issues. We look forward to continuing cooperation with the county health departments to attack this epidemic.”

The local health departments will be implementing numerous strategies which include:

• Providing community education about adverse childhood experiences, trauma informed systems of care and Mental Health First Aid
• Providing trainings to health care providers on best practices for prevention and treatment strategies
• Creating/implementing media campaigns to raise public awareness of the risks associated with prescription opioids
• Educating professionals about the Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment process (SBIRT) and facilitating implementation in Kansas communities
• Engaging local emergency departments to identify and implement promising emergency department opioid overdose protocols, policies, and procedures
• Implementation of an innovative and effective model of community-level coordination

                                                                                                           

Funded county health departments will have representatives participating in a kickoff event Thursday, December 13 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Wichita State University, Old Town, 238 N. Mead.