220 church leaders and volunteers as Wellness Champions to reduce the stigma of mental illness. Community connectors are staff members who have established connections with the community and are able to link individuals to needed care and services. Pastors’ wives, comprising the “First Ladies Network,” are being trained as group facilitators and peer mentors for people with health and behavioral health conditions. The Bridges initiative is also working with the Missouri Opioid State Targeted Response Team to facilitate Opioid Crisis Management Training to churches that are interested in providing naloxone kits onsite. Church-based participants in the training learn about the signs and symptoms of OUD, the impact of trauma and OUD, access to medication-first treatment programs, and use of naloxone. Community Snapshot: Providing support programs through thechurch—Imani BreakthroughRecovery Program. The Imani Breakthrough Recovery Program, supported by the Connecticut State Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and the Psychiatry Department of the Yale School of Medicine, is a 12- week intervention program for people with SUD that utilizes faith as a key support in recovery. Integral to the intervention is the involvement of faith-based entities like the church, which is why it is called Imani, meaning “faith” in Swahili. The intervention program seeks to get people with SUD into treatment and has two components to the program—a faith-based support group and wellness coaching. Facilitators who are people with lived experience and members from the church lead the intervention. The developers of the intervention train the facilitators. The intervention addresses eight dimensions of wellness— emotional, health, occupational, financial, spiritual, wellness, intellectual and physical—and teaches a curriculum focused on “the five R’s” (roles, resources, responsibilities, relationships and rights). The weekly meetings are held in church basements. The church provides necessities, including a shared meal, and for some individuals, a space for showering. Participants receive a ten-dollar stipend at each meeting for transportation and other needs. Each meeting has a theme and provides a safe space to share thoughts and feelings. The facilitator presents various scenarios to be
discussed, and conveys specific skills to be shared and tested. Developing self-advocacy is a major focus of the program. One participant of the program stated, “One of the things this program has done for me is being able to advocate for myself. It has also given me an opportunity to find resources in the community…to have a community of like-minded individuals.” 56 Another stated, “The program gave me the opportunity to open up to others. If you don’t have a place to go where you can talk about what’s going on in your life, you’re subject to going out and taking drugs.” 56 Community Snapshot: Educating rural pastors on opioids and leveraging technology—Morehouse School of Medicine. Churches are highly valued in Black/African American communities in rural Georgia. Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta has subcontracted with these churches to collaborate on addressing various public health efforts including opioid misuse and OUD. The “dual mission of the faith community to provide spiritual support as well as attend to unmet social issues and needs in the community” is the basis for this partnership. Funding has supported collaborations among social service agencies and churches, and allowed for coordinated public awareness efforts. Pastors and faith leaders are included on advisory committees for grant funding to provide guidance on working with the faith community. In these communities, it is key to recognize the status of pastors in rural communities and connecting with pastor conferences to disseminate information and enlist support. Morehouse has partnered with churches in micropolitan and rural settings that are leveraging technology such as radio broadcasts and podcasts to provide awareness and education on substance misuse and SUD. In one community, a faith leader after attending a training on the opioid crisis in the community, included the subject in a podcast with youth. Podcasts and similar online social media such as Facebook Live are innovative, current, inexpensive, and easily accessible ways to discuss important but stigmatized health issues with a community and particularly, the younger generations. Utilizing technology in the form of online sermons quickly— and at the convenience of the listener—provides
THE OPIOID CRISIS AND THE BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN POPULATION: AN URGENT ISSUE
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