Tuscarawas County Anti-Drug Coalition Meeting

Zoom

Friday, April 2, 2021

Present:

Ron Bond, Tusc Co Farm Bureau 

Angela Henary, Community Mental Health

Brian Herzog, Tusc Co Public Library

Bill Houglan, Citizen Member

Gail Houglan, Citizen Member

Connie Limbacher, ADC Secretary

Kayli Luthy, OhioGuidestone 

Kristin Macaulay, Community Mental Health

Michaela Madison, Newsymom

Mary Marshall, Citizen Member

Kerry Metzger, ADC Chairman 

Jeff Neidig, Mediwise Pharmacy

Autumn Poland Tusc Co Health Dept 

Abigale Raber, Tusc Co Health Dept

Miles Riley, Community Mental Health

Jodi Salvo, OhioGuidestone

Jessica Sexton, OhioGuidestone 

Diana Smith, OhioGuidestone

Kelly Snyder, Tusc Co Health Dept 

Meeting Summary:

Kerry Metzger called the Virtual meeting to order at 10:02 AM on Friday, April 2, 2021, with 19 members present. Jeff Neidig made a motion to accept the March 2021 minutes with the 2 corrections–1. Changing the location of the meeting from the ADAMHS Board Meeting Room to Zoom Virtual Meeting and 2. with accepting March 2021 minutes to February 2021 minutes. Diana Smith seconded and the vote was unanimous. 

Committee Reports:

Executive Committee: Kerry reported on the March Steering Committee meeting—Four major topics. 1. Website—met with Josh Aul to discuss upgrades to the website. Discussed expanding the agencies listed under Community Services, changing the content for the Marijuana and Rx committees to be more youth focused, placing a blog on the website, double checking to make sure all the correct toolkits are listed under the specific committees, the ADC monthly meeting zoom link will now be placed on the calendar, Rx committee page will provide a link to the Tuscarawas County Health Department to request Naloxone and committee chairs will be requesting photos, if needed for the press releases or the many projects that we run. We have completed most of this—except the Marijuana brochure needs finished and further development on the Youth-led page. The blog issue is being handled between Michaela and Josh. Michaela reported that they have a ton of content ready to go. She just needs to connect with Josh and decide how to disperse the info in a timely manner. Josh will need to create a blog page that will support blog posts then she will post on a regular basis of whether we want weekly, biweekly or once a month posts. We have the content to do all three, so he should have the ability to preschedule the blogs. It could then be linked to Facebook so it would automatically post to the page, so there would not be a ton of maintenance. 2. Stipend for the Coalition Secretarial position—Discussion was opened for possibly providing a stipend for the Secretarial position. It would be for the position henceforth and not for an individual which means that if the coalition wants to do this, we will need changes to our by-laws and subsequently hold a vote by the coalition members. The committee is doing further research on this proposal. 3. Reeves Foundation Grant—A funding opportunity was presented to the Steering Committee that could provide for capital needs of the coalition. Jodi wrote the grant proposal and submitted, which was due by March 25th. Jodi reported that it was for an OWL Device (360 degree lens) so we could hold in person meetings and offer a way for persons to participate virtually. Application also included a computer and SMART TV to go with it. This device can be mounted in a fixed position on the United Way conference room, but device is also transportable, so if we were having a meeting at the ADAMHS Board or a coalition retreat or event, we could take OWL device with us. It has the intelligence that if two people are speaking, it will divide the screen. If you are attending virtually, it will look like you are attending in person. This would help us transition to in-person meetings and provide us a new way for persons to attend meetings in the future. The awards should be announced in April. Jodi will let us know the amount requested. 4. AD-HOC Committees—The committee discussed forming two different AD-HOC Committees A. For the purpose of coalition financial sustainability and B. Drug use and misuse during and after pregnancy. This will be discussed under “New Business”.

922 Initiative: Jodi shared that she submitted a grant application for Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) Federal grant opportunity for local drug crises, last night. There will be 60 applications awarded in the U.S. The application looked strong by submission. This funding is to prevent and reduce initiation of opioids, prescription drugs and methamphetamines use among youth in the Twin City area. This is to address the “hot spot” designation that the Twin City area has been given based on overdose data collected by the Tuscarawas County Addiction Task Force. The two hot-spots in the county include New Philadelphia and the Twin City area, in particular, Uhrichsville. Diana has stepped into the role with the Addiction Task Force of convening and facilitating the 922 Initiative. The group has met a couple of times and if we receive this funding—the award would be announced and begin in July. It would formalize placing the 922 Initiative as a standing committee of the ADC, which would create a coalition by-law change. We would create a 922 Initiative page on the ADC website and link the ADC and 922 Initiative Facebook pages. It would be a five-year funding period. This will allow us to do more targeted prevention work in the Twin City area. Diana has done a phenomenal job convening the 922 Initiative and has engaged mayors, EMS, police chiefs, the Chamber, Claymont City Schools and other stakeholders. It will fund Diana to coordinate the 922 Initiative. Autumn will also be actively working with the 922 Initiative. Autumn mentioned that the TCHD has available funding with the Tobacco grant to address health disparities and will be working with Claymont City Schools, members of the 922 Initiative to address health disparities in the Twin City areas and this might include supporting the development of the Apportis platform to provide information and resources to students, parents and staff at Claymont City Schools that does not require broadband. Jodi said the CARA funding would assist the Twin City area being fully supported by the ADC and have full access to all programs, resources and initiatives and it will exercise cultural competence as the community can own the prevention efforts in their community and Diana will assist in the 922 Initiative in capacity building, readiness, planning, implementation and evaluation of prevention work. 

Youth: National Drugs & Alcohol Facts Week (NDAFW). Kayli Luthy reported on school efforts. Tusky Valley had a display case where they dropped down a curtain every day of the week to show a different section of the display case which they had sectioned off. Monday was Marijuana-so they had facts and info about marijuana, Tuesday was Tobacco and so forth. TCC had a bulletin board and they placed information fact sheets in the bathroom stalls; Strasburg had Spirit week which was like “Lay Off Drugs” where they wore Hawaiian shirts and leis. Claymont had an educational day where they played the Jeopardy game and they learned facts and info about different substances, In addition, YAB students attended a NDAFW Proclamation on the 15th at the Tuscarawas County Court House with the Commissioners. Going forward there is still the survey and a video that Strasburg is doing after spring break and testing. The different schools were able to participate in some cool games before spring break, so now it will be a little slow when they get back after testing. YAB as a whole has some podcasts and radio spots that they will be working on for PWHLTM “Parents Who Host, Lose the Most.” Pics will be posted on both Instagram and Facebook. Jodi did a “Shout Out” for Jessica and Kayli—It has been extremely challenging and hard to work with the students, especially the past couple of months. It been difficult to keep students engaged. Please encourage them to keep going and hang in there!”

Alcohol Committee: Jodi reported for Veronica—The PWHLTM campaign launches next week- April 14th. The Youth will be creating a PSA’s with WJER, these PSA slots were graciously provided to us by Chris & Emily Lane. We will also be reaching out to WTUZ. A podcast with Chris Lane and Lindsey Tidrick will be recorded next Tuesday to share be shared on Strasburg and other school districts, on their social media pages. We have 500-yard signs that can be placed to saturate the message throughout the county. You can pick up your yard signs up at the United Way building. We did not think of it soon enough, but United Way has people coming in to the United Way office to pick up their taxes and that would be a great way to pass out signs for next year’s campaign. Please ask your agency/organization, co-workers, friends and families if they would be willing to post signs. Signage will be posted mid-April to June, to capture both prom and graduation season. This campaign only works if we have visual reminders. The yard signs do capture your eye. It is a public health campaign to help prevent underage drinking in our community. The key message is help remind parents how unsafe, unhealthy and unacceptable it is to provide alcohol for underage youth. The school districts have signs, and banners are going up in cities across in the county. Hopefully, all ADC members will put a yard sign in their yards. Mary Marshall asked if we could put some at the radio stations and the chamber possibly as places to pick them up. Michaela will check on them as well as asking about doing recordings with WTUZ as PSA’s too. Brian Herzog will be able to share PSA’s too.  

LUNCH & LEARN—April 7th from 11AM-1PM—Addiction Policy Forum with speaker Jessica Hulsey. About 60 people are currently registered. If you try to register through your cell phone—the link is trying to take you straight to the Zoom link so do not register that way. Please register through your computer. Chris and Emily Lane have willingly offered lunch, which after registering you will receive a coupon for a free lunch from the local Tuscarawas County and Carroll County Wendy’s, that can be used any time on April 7th. If you have not registered, Jessica is a national speaker, and is phenomenal. She has a great understanding of prevention, treatment and recovery. It will be helpful to us to know what else we can do to prevent Youth Substance Abuse and Addiction and she does think in an environmental terms, so that is super helpful. It also helps us to help other agencies and organizations to better understand Youth Substance Abuse & Addiction. Diana will send the Wendy’s coupons on Tuesday morning, so watch your email, if you have registered.

Marijuana Committee: Jodi reported for committee. Preventing youth marijuana use is a priority and it is a difficult issue. This committee is in need of more active members, if you are interested in joining the Marijuana Committee, please let Kerry or Jodi know. We discussed needing school presence on this committee. Jodi will speak at upcoming superintendents meeting and ask their consideration of allowing a school staff person to join committee. We are fortunate to have Kent State Dean Bielski on the committee and he is supportive of efforts. At committee meeting it was discussed having a high school and middle school assembly for Tuscarawas County students. Dean Bielsky said he would check on availability of the PAC to hold county wide assemblies. Schools would need to agree to support effort and bus students to the PAC (similar to what they do for Leaders of Tomorrow). The committee discussed bringing in Ty Sells from Youth to Youth International to present his “Clear the Air” presentation. Members of the committee viewed Ty’s Clear the Air presentation and felt that he would do a great job, as Ty is a skilled and gifted speaker on this subject and well received by students. The marijuana committee still needs to get its brochure together and there is a lot of legislative activity on this issue at both the federal and state level. This means we need to educate our legislatures on the negative impact of youth marijuana use. Kerry is keeping an eye on legislative issues. We are pleased to see more and more research emerging around the negative effects of youth marijuana use. The Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program is considering adding autism to the spectrum of allowable use under medical marijuana and HB 212 is a remake of bill from last session that didn’t get any traction—it decriminalizes the use of marijuana but also permits recreational marijuana to be in law. We did meet with four of our judges already. We are still hoping to meet with Judge Hillyer in Southern District Court to gain his perspective and judicial philosophy around marijuana offenses. Judge Thomakos has said that out of her 22 years as judge, she has only had 2 out of all her drug cases that did not mention marijuana use as a drug of initiation. Judge Von Allman said 100% of her cases involved initiation with marijuana. So anecdotally they see marijuana use as a starting point for people struggling with addiction. Since the Farm Bill in 2018, they mentioned that nobody is going to jail for low level marijuana use because it’s a minor misdemeanor in Ohio. The problem is, with the legalization of hemp, confiscated marijuana must first be tested to determine if it is marijuana or hemp and the state labs are inundated with testing of other drugs, which puts marijuana testing low on the priority list, given it is a minor misdemeanor in Ohio. With that being said, one of the arguments for legalization of marijuana is for criminal justice issues, which according to our judges, incarceration because of low level marijuana use in not a thing in Tuscarawas County.

Media Committee: Michaela reported that it was a little slower month, but she did a press on the Proclamation for NDAFW with a photo of the students and commissioners which was really nice to see since the Covid restrictions. Also we have the PWHLTM press release going out around April 14th. Kerry will be the pic we need for that campaign. Veronica forwarded info to Michaela the info for this release. From the Steering Committee report, we are trying to personalize the press releases with pics along with them. Going out today is the press release regarding the “Lunch & Learn” on April 7 that the ADC is hosting. We do have the speaker’s head shot. Pending is the press release from Kayli regarding the youth and Dover-Phila Credit Union’s Bonsai Program that they are working together on. It is a little different approach on financial literacy and how Y2Y students are helping with this program that the bank offers which will show the diversity of the work of the Y2Y/YAB programming to help build skills among students, to assist them in making healthy lifestyle choices. Also pending is the Y2Y survey results when they are completed. The Twin City handprint project is still for a future press release. Twin City Hospital is on board with the handprint project and plans to put handprints all over. Jodi suggested waiting until closer to the end of school for the handprint press release and to combine with summer tips. We need to look ahead through September as far as we can  on press release so Michaela can prewrite press releases as she is due in June and will be out on maternity leave. 

Prescription Drug Committee: Jeff thanked Jodi for helping and leading committee meeting in his absence as he was needed to administer Covid vaccines. April 24th is National Drug Take-Back Day. We have the 3 locations—Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital, Trinity Twin City Hospital (both run by the Sheriff’s Dept) and Cleveladn Clinic Mercy (High St. NP). Event will be held from 10AM-2PM. Connie sent out the link and info regarding volunteers to sign up for that day to help pass out Deterra bags, magents, literature. There will be a Safe Medication Storage Boxes at each location and info with criteria for those boxes will be on link. Rachel Rothacher will be doing a podcast on Tuesday and we’d welcome another person to explain the Drug Take-Back Day. Connie asked that someone please take pics at each site so we have for press releases and Media. 2. Ohio HB 9-Dextromethorphan—submitted written testimony for Ohio Senate in support of restricting age limit to purchase cough syrups/tablets containing DM. There is a misuse among the youth buying it to get a buzz or get high. If passed we will use this legislation to educate parents on this issue 3. SPFRx Grant—State Grant that we have had for the past several years to prevent youth Rx medication use, which has funded our purchasing of drug deactivation bags, medication safety boxes, paid ads, etc. The State has identified that they will be starting to work with urban communities with the grant funding. The grant might become more focused on working with doctor and dentist offices and urban communities. We are not sure if we will continue to receive this funding after June 2021.

Tobacco Committee: Vaping Task Force Update: Autumn reported that three videos were sent out on vaping to Louise at T4C and Kiersten—4-H to be sent out with their groups. Kayli, Autumn, Jessica and Marina Columbo took part in the “Catch My Breath” training to train the trainer. The first CATCH My Breath training will be with Claymont Middles School starting April 21st. Autumn said that they reviewed Point of Sale policy for the city of Dover to put an ordinance in place to require retailers to post “Quit Line” information at the POS. Autumn did 17 store audits last week and was impressed that signage has been pulled back at many of the locations. Dover City Schools has all the information they need to update their policy to make it 100% tobacco free. Dover and Indian Valley are the only two left that don’t have the 100% A+ rated policy. The last thing is that the vaping button on the website is ready to go. They have decided to go ahead and put the QR Codes on the posters to link the Quit Line so the kids can use their phones to just scan it, very discreetly, with their phones on them. We are using existing posters provided by the state and just adding that QR Code. Those are the big highlights.

Faith-Based Committee: There was no report today.   

Old Business:  None

New Business:

These are two Ad Hoc Committees that the Steering Committee recommends that we have.

• Ad Hoc Committee—To study the need for programs for pregnant women. Purpose is to study the need for local programming and to development strategies for pregnant and postpartum women regarding drug use and misuse. Why is that important? Recent data (2019) from SAMSA shows that past month substance use among pregnant women is at these rates: 

1. 1. Tobacco—9.6%
   2. Alcohol—9.5%
   3. Illicit Drugs—5.8%
   4. Marijuana—5.4%

Are we informing and educating pregnant and postpartum women in Tuscarawas County on the dangers of drug use and misuse? We need to find out what programs exist in our county, are they being coordinated effectively and do we need to provide programming where gaps are identified for local pregnant and postpartum women. Volunteers are needed to be on this committee. In the Steering Committee, Autumn volunteered. Kerry would like to have 3-5 volunteers for this committee. If your willing, the ADC will send out a volunteer sheet via email or contact Jodi or Kerry and let them know. Jeff expressed that Access Tusc was working on this, but he was not sure where things were left or if they were still working on this. There is a lot of grant possibilities for this. It was mentioned in the chat how beneficial it would be to seek out a breastfeeding specialist to be a volunteer on this committee. Kelly was going to check with the Tusc Co Health Dept to see if through one of their programs might fit in here and would look to see if someone from the WIC dept might be interested in being a part of. Michaela and the Newsymom organization would like to be a part of this committee.

• Ad Hoc Committee—to produce a financial sustainability for the coalition. What does this mean? A coalition that has adequate financial resources to intervene at the community level and can maintain these resources long enough to see community-level outcomes. For our coalition, we have adequate financial resources to fund current activities. This is due to our obtaining a Drug-Free Communities Grant several years ago. It is a grant which provides our coalition with $125,000/year for 5 years. We are currently in year 3, however, it will run out in 2 years. The good news is that we can apply for a year 6-10 DFC grant. The bad news is that it is not guaranteed and it would definitely run out in year 10. That is why we need to begin to work on a long-term financial sustainability plan to ensure the continued good work of the coalition. Commissioner Chris Abbuhl will be asked to be part of this committee. Kerry is also focusing on some business people and would also like someone from the nonprofit sector to be on this committee. Contact Kerry if you are interested and willing to serve on this committee.

After much discussion, and Connie requesting volunteer hours to be turned in. Miles Riley made a motion to Adjourn and all voted yes at 11:25 AM. 

Next Board Meeting will be a virtual meeting on Friday, May 7th from 10:00-11:30 am. The same Zoom code will be used.