National presentation

A local organization will represent Jay County on the national level next week.

Jay County Drug Prevention Coalition will share an educational session and a poster presentation at the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) National Leadership Forum.

The nationwide event, hosted in National Harbor, Maryland, kicks off Monday and continues through Feb. 5. It serves as the United States’ largest gathering aimed at substance use prevention, treatment and recovery.

“This is a great honor to be selected to present,” Jay County Drug Prevention Coalition executive director Kimbra Reynolds said. “They receive thousands of requests to present, so we’re honored to be able to show CADCA what the community has been able to do together.”

Reynolds will present a session called, “Turning Loss Into Action,” which explains how the organization’s suicide and overdose fatality reviews have been used to identify system gaps, strengthen coordination and inform data-driven community solutions. Reynolds has also been selected to serve as chair of the Indiana coalitions during the forum’s state delegation meeting.

“Our coalition has become a leader in the state for the suicide and overdose fatality review process … the community, kind of came together and looked at their gaps to make some changes to help reduce suicides and overdoses,” Reynolds said. 

Those changes have included major projects such as the prospective recovery home, The Vision on Votaw, as well as efforts like connecting individuals who are leaving incarceration to the services they need.

Overdose fatality reviews, she said, are not about pointing fingers when it comes to identifying and filling gaps in services.

“That’s never the thought process behind a review — it’s about where in our community can we fill in gaps so that individuals don’t fall through the cracks, and we don’t have to attend a funeral,” she said.

Jay County Drug Prevention Coalition director of prevention services Ally Raines and peer recovery coach Cara Cramer will present a poster highlighting the county’s progress from rising overdose deaths in 2017 to developing long-term strategies for prevention. Director of recovery services Sara Mann and prevention coordinator Mason Edwards will also join the Jay County team next week.

Raines said she feels blessed to be able to present at the forum, explaining that it speaks volumes to the organization and community’s progress in combating the opioid epidemic.

“I think that just shows where we’re at and how much growing we’ve done since we started,” she said. “It’s just great to be recognized for something we do, because in the moment, we think what we’re doing is so small, but in the grand scheme, it’s like, you look at the bigger picture and see all of the impact we have made in the last few years.”

The poster she, Cramer and coalition marketing coordinator Mekayla Nichols created walks through a timeline of Jay County’s progress in the addiction prevention and recovery fields. It starts with the rising number of overdoses in 2017 and points to the Drug-Free Communities grant awarded to the coalition the following year to help with prevention. The poster also mentions various programs and fundraising opportunities made available in Jay County over the last nine years, including its September overdose awareness memorial event at Hudson Family Park in Portland.

Jay County Drug Prevention Coalition has attended the forum for multiple years and presented once before. This year, the coalition was chosen through a national review process, with the organization submitting its abstract, lesson objectives and other materials in July. It learned in October it would be presenting.

According to its website, the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America’s upcoming forum is anticipated to have more than 4,000 attendees from across the globe. It also includes more than 100 workshops, sessions and various professional development opportunities.

Creating the poster put the coalition’s work into perspective for Raines.

“In the moment, sometimes you don’t feel like you’re making a difference, but then you look back at it and you’re like, ‘Whoa, look at where we’ve come,’” she said. “I just think it’s huge, and then being able to share that on the national level, it’s just overwhelming, but it’s wonderful, you know? Just being able to show what a little county can do is huge.”