Explanation
This ordinance authorizes the City Clerk to enter into a grant agreement with the Columbus Kappa Foundation, a non profit entity, for the support of their Opiate Community Connectors Program.
The Columbus Kappa Foundation has been directly working with populations vulnerable to drug use and overdose since its creation in 1994. New research shows racial disparities in opioid overdose rates, with the rate of deaths among Black people growing faster than in other groups. The researchers are calling for expanding access to drug treatment and to education on how to prevent overdoses using the antidote drug, naloxone. The Opiate Community Connectors Program is a network of supporters who intervene and help find treatment for people with substance use disorder. The Opiate Community Connectors Program partners with churches and other faith institutions, schools, shelters, halfway houses, and other community infrastructures with the aim of strengthening naloxone distribution efforts in areas most affected by overdose numbers.
These partnerships will result in trainings conducted by The Opiate Community Connectors Program of lay distribution volunteers to engage with their neighborhoods to make naloxone access available as well as acceptable. Additionally, The Opiate Community Connectors Program will develop and implement a drug use presentation to be presented at specific organizations located in at-risk neighborhoods. This presentation will include a Narcan kit demonstration, educating the community on harm reduction efforts within the service area.
Emergency action is necessary to ensure funding is available immediately for residents who are suffering from opiate addiction.
Fiscal Impact: Funding is available within the Neighborhood Initiatives subfund.
Title
To authorize the City Clerk to enter into a grant agreement with the Columbus Kappa Foundation in support of their Opiate Community Connectors Program; to authorize an appropriation and exp...
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