Tuscarawas County Anti-Drug Coalition Meeting
ADAMHS Board Meeting Room
Friday, October 2, 2020

Present:

Briana Bobzien, Trinity Twin City Community Outreach
Jodi Dean, MAOL, Sunrise Vista Health
Nicole Dorsey, Tusc Co Health Dept
Lisa Holmes, Community Member
Bill Houglan, Community Member
Gail Houglan, Community Member
Jennifer Kiko, Representative Congressman Bob Gibbs
Peggy Leslie, Harcatus-RSVP- Civic Rep
Connie Limbacher, ADC Secretary
Kayli Luthy, OhioGuidestone- Youth Led Prevention Facilitator
Kristin Macaulay, Community Mental Health
Alex McCarthy, EMA
Kerry Metzger, ADC Chairman
Mark Murphy, Tusky Valley Superintendent
Jeff Neidig, Mediwise Pharmacist
Mary Ann Otte, Community Member
Miles Riley, Community Mental Health
Jodi Salvo, Personal & Family Counseling Services
Gerald Sanders, Community Member
Diana Smith, Personal & Family Counseling Services
Kelly Snyder, Tusc Co Health Dept
Veronica Spidell, ADAMHS Board
Larry Stitt, Pastor Lake Drive Fellowship
Robin Waltz, Executive Director United Way
Brock West, Youth Advisory Board

Meeting Summary:

Kerry Metzger called the Virtual meeting to order at 10:00 AM on Friday, October 2, 2020, with 25 members present. Larry Stitt made a motion to accept the September minutes and Mary Ann Otte seconded. The vote was unanimous.

Committee Reports:

Executive Committee:

Kerry has asked committees chairs to consider changing their monthly committee meetings to the third Mondays of each month. This will afford committee chairs an opportunity to submit most up to date agenda items to ADC coalition chair to be included on the ADC monthly agenda. This will accomplish providing members a more informative meeting agenda, prior to the ADC monthly meetings, and fulfill ADC by-law requirement, of a 7-day prior meeting notification. Tobacco Committee will now meet on the third Monday of each month from 10-11; Alcohol Committee will meet from 1-2 and the Rx Committee will meet from 2:15-3:30.

Alcohol Committee:

Veronica reported that she thought the roll out the SAMHSA “Talk They Hear You” campaign went really well. This initiative-included press release, podcast, discussion about campaign during virtual fair, and emails went out to all school district that provided them campaign materials to share and post on school websites and social media. There was also ad buys with school fall and spring sport programs with the “Talk They Hear You” message that directed persons to the ADC website. Veronica thanked Diana for providing the social media posts and campaign materials from SAMHSA. Jodi reported that SAMSHA, the developer of the “Talk We Hear You” campaign has asked permission to feature Tuscarawas County in their upcoming monthly newsletter regarding this campaign. This would be a national recognition of our efforts- great job Alcohol Committee!

Faith Based Efforts:

Connie reported that there were at least 120 initially participating. She thanked the committee workers, which did a fantastic job trying to reach the churches, with the pandemic, and working around the many obstacles that this caused. Thanks to: Gerald (who did about everything and went delivering and visiting many), Janice, Larry, Jessica, Rita, Mary Ann, Deena, Briana, Pastor Chuck and Michael. Also, thanks goes out to Diana, who not only delivered Gnadenhutten, but also presented the HOPE Sunday at one of the churches that needed help, and thanks to Peggy and her three volunteers from RSVP who helped put the packets together. Through everyone’s efforts, there were attempts to reach out to 200 churches at least once, many several times. A lot of information was gathered for future use. Several church services will have snippets of their recordings as a part of our follow-up and advertising for next year. Jodi imputed about what an amazing video it was, the music behind it, the message is powerful explaining people’s struggles with addiction. This is being shared widely, not only in Tuscarawas County. Other states and communities are sharing their version of HOPE Sunday now. Because a grant from the state paid for this project, Jodi shared everything back to the governor’s office yesterday and from their responses, they will be sharing it widely throughout the states of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. The efforts here are being noticed and recognized, which is helping engage other faith communities to be involved and demonstrating how they can help. Kerry thanked Connie and the committee for the many volunteer hours that were put into this project. This is the 3rd year and we have moved this nationally, as Jodi presented on this for CADCA mid-year. Larry reported that they would have their first Faith Based Committee meeting (made up of mostly pastors) on the third Tuesday of this month at the Cross Café at 11am in Strasburg for anyone wanting to participate. Also on October 17, a Living Free event will be held 10-noon with lunch provided at Lake Drive Fellowship church. Anyone can attend, just need to let Larry know.

Marijuana Committee:

Online Marijuana Surveys—Alex reported that Diana will post a survey link on the ADC Facebook page. Please share the link to get the survey out. The ADC also had a booth at the “Music on the Square” last week and received paper surveys. Peggy’s RSVP volunteers will tally these. A committee meeting will be called sometime in October or November.

Media Committee:

Media Committee will meet on Zoom at 12:15 today. In the absence of Michaela, Jodi just expressed kudos to Michaela who is a “Rockstar”. She has created a schedule for the coalition to send out at least four press releases a month. Along with her videos on “Newsymom”. She understands our topics and is passionate about the mission and vision of the coalition. She is the best in the State! and does a phenomenal job educating, creating awareness and touting prevention efforts of the ADC.

Prescription Drug Committee:

• Over the Counter Drugs project update: Jeff reported that we have a subcommittee that will be working on this. They will look at current literature and platforms that are out there already on safety awareness. A lot of the times misuse of prescription drugs start with the misuse of the over the counter drugs that even youth are using to get “high” off of or have hallucinations, that can lead to more powerful drugs. We need to change the mindset and not mention certain substances, but all as a whole how to read that label correctly and properly.
• Proposed 2020-2021 Leadership Tusc Project: The over the counter project will be one of the items we are proposing they work on for the ADC. It is a little different timeline this year, but a great platform.
• Drug Take-Back Day Project-October 24th: This will be held at Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital in Dover, Trinity Hospital in Dennison and Mercy Medical Center in New Philadelphia in conjunction with the National Drug Take-Back Day and the Sheriff’s Dept/State Highway Patrol and the Stark/Wayne/Tuscarawas Recycling from 10AM to 2PM. Diana will sent up a volunteer link for Connie to send out for the volunteers to sign-up for.

Tobacco Committee:

Vaping Task Force Update: Nicole reported that the committee will meet on the third Monday of each month at 10 AM.

• Alternatives to school suspension programs: The focus of our last meeting was on in school suspensions. They are trying to get on the agenda for one of the next principals meetings so they can talk to them about the programs, as well as “The Catch My Breath” program. Would also like to offer our assistance in facilitating those programs in their schools. Principals were discussed as the best point of contact.
• Podcasts: Starting with Claymont, we will be doing podcasts with each individual school and their families to help understand the problems they are seeing in their schools and what they can do to solve it.

Youth:

Brock West reported that they have had quite a few YAB meetings already and most of the Youth to Youth programs within the schools will be either starting soon or have already started. Kayli reported Red Ribbon Campaign: Going to have a door-decorating contest. They will be decorating Al Landis’s door, so once done, if everyone will go online and vote for Al’s door please. Kerry suggested that they do the Proclamation to the County Commissioners again this year. The courthouse will be lit in red for Red-ribbon week. A guest speaker presented a mentoring financial literacy program for the students from one of the Dover/Phila banks. The students play games, etc. while learning about how to handle money. Kayli has invited YAB students to attend the ADC meetings, if able.

Old Business: County Virtual Fair:

Diana reported that it went well. We did not have the interaction that she wanted on FB Live but we did have a lot of views afterwards. One of the nights, we had 145 views. Diana thanked Veronica and Nicole for showing up for their segments. Nicole’s went really well and it featured vaping paraphernalia and was very informative. Veronica touched on how to prevent youth alcohol initiation and she did a phenomenal job promoting SAMHSA “Talk They Hear You” campaign and materials. All in all, it was different not being the actual fair but we were able to provide information into the community. The Marijuana survey will be posted as soon as Diana receives it from Miles. The videos are on Facebook. Easy conversations and able to share. They are also on the ADC YouTube channel. ADC members were encouraged to share videos widely.

Project HOPE Review:

(October 1-24)-Project HOPE was launched yesterday. Three silhouettes were placed in nine communities in Tuscarawas County. The set of three includes a black silhouette that has the number of deaths per county, a gray silhouette that represents overdoses not resulting in death per community and a yellow silhouette of mother and child that has “there is always hope” on silhouette. In addition, to the silhouettes a yard sign is placed with a list of resources in the county for help. Yesterday we held a press conference with representation from Federal level to a person in recovery. We had 10 speakers, press coverage, Kerry moderated. Speakers included representation from Congressman Gibbs and Congressman Johnsons office, State Rep. Hillyer, Commissioner Landis, Mayor Day, Natalie from ADAHMS Board, Nicole from New Philadelphia Health Department, Kristen, Mary Ann, and Kathy Baazar. We had great press coverage to include TV-9, Tusco TV, WJER, WTUZ, TR, Newsymom and it was live streamed by Next-level. We were able to focus on addiction and the recent uptick in overdoses and overdose deaths that have been occurring due to the pandemic. Project Hope is intended to educate, create awareness and to share resources and encourage community members to check in on persons that are struggling. Please share information on Project Hope this campaign will run until Sunday October 25, from 5-6PM, where we will have a concluding event at the courthouse with a memorial service for those we lost, a speaker on addiction and the resources in the county and a recovery story. Another hope of this initiative is to support persons in recovery, letting them know that the community has their back and wants them healthy and whole. The silhouettes say 14 passed but that was as of July. As of today the count is 28 overdose deaths since January 1st. We have had more than 160 overdoses, so we will have the accurate count of deaths and overdoses at the October 25th event.

New Business:

Legislative:UPDATES:

Kerry reported that Jodi, Chris Lane, JP and himself went to Columbus and provided testimony to the Senate Committee on HB 669 and 674. House Bill 669 update: This bill passed out of committee but with several amendments which made it better. House Bill 674 update: This bill did not have enough time.
COVID grant funds available for non profits. Applications not available until October 15th with a November 15th deadline. Kerry will get the info to Connie to email out. ????
Introduced new attendees: Jodi Dean from Sunrise Vista a new hospital in Stark County, Lisa Holmes a new recruit from HOPE Sunday and Robin Waltz from United Way.
Alex explained that the EMA is putting together contact list for Emergency Services volunteers. Anyone interested in helping, please contact him.

Please fill out the volunteer sheets and return to Connie.

Larry made a motion to Adjourn and all voted yes at 11:33 am.

Next Board Meeting will be a virtual meeting on November 6th from 10:00-11:30 am.