and recovery specialist as well as e m t's and other professionals have partnered to create both innovative and data driven programs to address these issues to give you a sense of the scope of the problem in two thousand and seventeen state police assigned to my office responded to two hundred twenty two fatal opioid overdoses across the county that was in fact an eleven point five percent decline from two thousand and sixteen and it represented the first decline in those numbers since two thousand and thirteen up north of our care in the in our county in the city of lowell which had for so long really been the epicenter of this epidemic for as we ended two thousand and seventeen with a twenty one point two percent decline in fatal overdoses that's obviously encouraging but our work is by no means done and we were making conscious as we always are that behind every one of those numbers which is how we measure what's happening is the family who loses a loved one son or daughter brother a sister and increasingly a mom or dad now before we get to the panel i'd like to talk about a couple of new programs that we've begun in the office the first of which is a new partnership begun in two thousand seventeen with project line is to provide blankets which have been shown by research to be extraordinarily comforting to children of all ages and we're providing those through our police and fire departments to kids across middlesex county who may experience either an opioid related our other type of trauma and the nice pieces that allows us to partner with our senior centers where many folks are helping us to make those blankets so it's a real community effort to be doing that and we've also part d with lowell police fire department trinity ambulance and mental health associates of greater lowell to create project care which provides twenty four hour seven day a week trauma services for children who may experience some type of trauma and that's activated by our police and fire departments or other first responders early data shows clearly that that kind of response helps to lessen trauma keep kids from falling into the cycle of substance use and have a better outcome and are focused on data has been recognized with some funding in this year's state budget put together by state sen jamie eldridge which has allowed us to partner with the not for profit americans institute for research to conduct a holistic study of the opioid services being provided across middlesex county middlesex county is uniquely positioned to really be a social laboratory because of its fifty four cities and towns which represent really every possible demographic rural urban suburban it also builds upon this study will build upon our existing partnerships with health care mental health professionals as well as obviously our first responders the goal of the project is to look at the complexity of the problem and leverage effective and sustainable solutions by looking at health and human set services data as well as what we have found to be so important is listening to the voices of those who have lived experience it's our hope that through this look at the data will be able to establish correlations that will help us to prevent future overdoses already one of the trends that we have seen in middlesex county that we are really trying to bring to the awareness of folks either struggling with addiction or those who may love them is that in two thousand and seventeen eighty three percent of our fatal overdoses took place in the person's own home typically when the person was in their own bedroom or maybe a sleeping quarter in the basement and  in sixty seven percent of those there was another person not using who was present in the home either at the time or or just prior to the overdose so tracking and understanding that we hope will give folks the opportunity t preventive measures to make sure they know c p r they have narcan in the house and they are checking on people even when they might be breathing a sigh of relief that their son or daughter is safely in the house at night and i'm very pleased to be joined today by several important community partners who've been working with us to address this epidemic beginning at my far left is chief to free when we're the chief of the lowell fire department who has been an amazing partner to us representing really the new trend in fire services as they become a piece of this in the middle i'm joined by chief joseph o'connell of the chief of the concord police department as always represents the best of the partnerships that we have with law enforcement in middlesex county and to my immediate left is carr on the fire chief of law and been the chief for about three years and i'd work my way up through the ranks on the probable twenty four years and you know we're going to evolve with the with the opiate epidemic for a long time in the city of lol and we've got a lot of great programs we're trying to attack the problem from many different angles through education and through you know our can use all of the public's safety agencies in the city carrying our can we care and rescue breathing equipment which is a very very big piece in saving lives for those that are suffering from from overdoses we have a co op program that i can talk about a little bit later we have a public education officer that's trying to get into the high school in the middle schools to talk to young children about the perils of using illegal partnership with your office of the police to bomb social service agencies and health care providers we got a grant that we have a share with the police departments and in middle in the district what we have a social worker  who reach out to individuals that we believe that he they having substance abuse issues or a mental health issues just recently we were able to add a recovery coach to that to that team which we were very happy happy about  to be able to further try to link people with services we really change our mindset from trying to quote an arrest our way out of a lot of problems but the link people with with services also talking to different groups seniors young people  we have in our station people can drop off medications out of the homes out of their homes shops and things like that twenty four hours a day try to remove those things and it would your office where you know working with realtors and so forth educate people about you know people that have items in their homes but really a constant thing that we're evaluating every day trying to locate people and link them with services and carry it tell us a little bit about what you're doing now and some of the work you've done with it so i am carrying in and i am a recovering heroin addict currently with three and a half years so a bar i work for been in treatment center as a case manager  and you and i have been traveling middlesex county for about two and a half years i want to say just speaking on my personal experience what i needed while i was like seeking recovery and the progression of this disease i currently am recovering coach i also run it's overcoming addiction i just try to be available for anybody that walking for advice assistance guidance and basically to help open the door and to recovery chief you mention the use of nike and one of the things we've been doing in iraq this is using our drug for for term funds that is money taken away by the quote drug dealers the money they made from that sale and buying lots of narky and making that available to first responders to universities soup kitchens really any place that people have experience that can you talk a little bit about the difference that's made in terms of what you're seeing is outcome with use of narcan but it's made a huge difference in the city of law all the first responders police fire you know mass started carrying knockin on every every piece of apparatus about four years ago and you know it's made a huge difference the pup the public has also started to carry narky and it reverses the effects of heroin when people do use heroin the first thing that that happens is their breathing slows down and then it stops and use of data has played an important role and i development of programs and one of the most hopeful things really is the surge protection that we've been able to put together in my will that you were responsible for activated ok tell us a little bit about how that uses the data what happens and what the is it kind of monitors all the run reports and it picks out key words like overdose and heroin and they keep track of all the overdoses in the city and the grade a little area over the past three days and they have a supervisor named john kelly who analyze that data daily and he and i keep in touch and we have a protocol if we get a surgeon overdoses he'll notify me and i'll talk with the police superintendent and city manager and we all agree it will put out a message out to the public via traditional media social media close eye on your loved one if they are using heroin or other drugs and you know check on them frequently please don't use alone we find people who are alone when they're using the people are dying if an overdose is witnessed and someone either administers  to one right away it makes a big difference we can get to them quicker we can get oxygen in their system quicker we can get narky and in their system quicker just last weekend we had a surge in law and we activated our protocol we put out a big media blast and it made a huge difference we want from twenty overdoses in three days down to three overdoses in the next four days so it made a tremendous difference and it really did save lives and she felt kind of you talked a little bit about some of the steps your department has taken getting grants pretty recovery coaches reaching out to the families how do you convey that has that become a part of training how would you say over your years of police work the response to overdoses has changed and how do you bring your officers into that culture as so it's changed dramatically policing the whole issue of from really being focused on enforcement to really recognizing that this is a public health problem you know in our offices a lot of what had really hadn't taken that much  training so what the other less discussing it and giving them tools than arkin bringing in a social worker no recovery coach because you know unfortunately i don't really know any families that haven't been impacted by by  we sweep we are there that we can offer people you know opportunities to get some assistance and she if you mention didn't force me would you agree that really in terms of enforcement the shift has been from you know what would some we consider maybe street activity to looking to stopping the influx of substantial amounts of product into our county and our cities and towns right and that's the focus i think i'm in agreement with the chiefs around the area you know people are dealing dealing drugs we want to bring them into the criminal justice system if someone is has an addiction problem we want to link them with them to services across state stay with them be a resource their families have resources and support you know where we're very different community than the lol just urban we're you know suburban and rural but we're not we're not immune to those those issues in what the chief was talking about you know you know and you mentioned  overdoses occurring in the hall that's where that's where we've seen them and in our community so you know having people stay with their loved ones having the knock in in the home you know four years ago when i mention that a community meeting that we were putting  people in settings different settings about how there are signs that they might meet so what they should be worried about can you tell us a little bit about what kinds of even the most subtle signs that would indicate to a family member that there's someone struggling with opioid misuse  i think a lot of it is a lot earlier than when the person actually picks up the drugs and alcohol so it's a mental health type of symptom so like depression or a lack of motivation or their behavior is changing dramatically that right there is like a first indication from what i've seen and in my own personal experience that it something needs to be talked about something needs to be looked at but after the person ends up using alcohol or or heroin it's like not having money not able to keep a job dropping out of school  and then body wise that was losing a lot of weight covering up their arms in in the summertime when normally they would wear tank tops i often say we like i feel as  most parents almost missed so science because they're very common symptoms of the flu or depression but a lot of times when it it ends up being is a lot more than the mental health side of it where it's addiction now now we talked a little bit about the programs that we've put together to deal with childhood trauma tell us about both in your own experience in the work you're doing what you've seen of childhood trauma as being president  someone who then turns to substances i have i have yet to find somebody who hasn't had some sort of childhood trauma it may not be the same type of trauma as i  and but it's something that has has changed the course of that person's life which has brought them down this road where the only solution was picking up heroin so from for myself like something else was my my parents divorce which changed my entire foundation of of my life at that time then because of that i see outside of the tent attention looking for  males looking for alcohol hang around kids that were not doing what i was brought up to do also i could receive some sort of attention because i was i just wanted some sort of attention so negative was better than no attention  a lot of times the females to massacre abuse comes into play abuse on themselves with their body and with males it's more or less like internally staying to themselves not not growing to the extent that they possibly could and and even boing boing could a lot of kids now are coming in saying that like the  way things happen in school all how they were treated in school led them to their drug addiction their home life was perfect but what happened in school guided them down to picking up heroin chief talking about how there is carrion said there might be behavior that's going on before somebody gets to a substance abuse can you talk a little bit about some of the things the concord police department is doing in terms of looking at what might be seemingly low level offenses like a theft or some kind of mischief and really using our community we get to know know their families and if we have any type of hint that there is some type of mental help the issue or you know looking what caused that person to you know whether it was shoplifting or or  even in some cases driving a radically after we've been at a house for a domestic dispute or something like that to try to really interject selves into that whether it's with school guidance counselors and counselors or with or with the social worker that we have reaching out to that family and trying to link them to services if needed a lot of times it's really changed having a social worker and a police officer going going to the door we go go together that's really been able open up communications with families and you know our offices you know that who have been on the department for some time and we know families that have you know sometimes it's generational where dad was having an issue a mom in that now the now they have children in those children having it would try to break some  cycles that exist ok and you mentioned that a parent might maybe be on this oblivious to some of those signs or see them and maybe just write them off to something else they're stressed about school it's the flu if you're seeing those kind of things what do you recommend in terms of how a parent approaches their children about something they suspect just opening it up with communication is everything ok how are you doing house school a lot of the times from my own personal experience like with my parents is their main concern was like providing so of providing a roof over their head per being able to provide clothing and food and everything but at times what was needed was just like communication is everything ok what's going on with you how are you feeling about this and having that like trust where that child are going to feel that the parents may be disappointed so it's a trusting conversation  therapy therapy a lot of time will help not with extracurricular activities so sometimes sports or anything that can just open  being in that situation so often being you having the opportunity really to save lives and that made a difference are you communicating something differently in training in how they're responding with families you know i could be a very stressful thing for firefighters and just about every every every one of my firefighters has been affected in one way or another in their family and we also have a fire father participates in our co op team and he goes out and he follows up on people that are suffering from addiction and that when they overdose so go out and talk to them and try to steer them into the into the right program he'll keep trying over and over again and it becomes difficult work it gets very stressful you know we worry about needle sticks there's a lot of there's a lot of needles around in some of the some of the wooded areas but the firefighters of embrace that we train and on achieve you know you mentioned some of the things you've been doing to dispose of medication and we know that about seventy percent of the prescription medications that are mysterious come know someone's medicine cabinet you talk a little bit just about the importance of people really doing that simple thing when people say twenty four hours a day and drop drop those medications off at a time you know the other thing i think it's really important good point point important point is you have an surgery talk talk to your doctor about about medication you know if you have people with substance abuse issues in your family to let the doctor know that because you know people could be prone to that as well and you know medical providers should be aware of that when people go  for surgical procedures and things like that being a good advocate for your kids if they're the patient absolute terms of that cheap we talked a lot about narky and it's not can something that's easily administered by someone in the public it is there's plenty of training out there  militant training some of the some of the fast food restaurant owners our community and some of the business owners it's very simple to use there's two different versions of it in the area right now there's a two milligram version that's a little bit more complicated you have to put the you have to put the unit together but there's a new version that's a four milligram version and it's one step you just take it out of the package and put it in the person's thoughts austral and squirted and then a lot of times dull the wake up and start breathing again five to ten minutes later and you brought any with you today and it does have night can i get to invite sheepman but at this point just to demonstrate how easy it is to administer that you're sure if we arrive at a medical emergency and we think the person may have overdosed we'll take a look at the scene si up the scene and see if there's any drug paraphernalia around talk to any bystanders and ask what they've noticed you know that is a person a known drug user and i will go up and check the person and see if they're conscious and this person's unconscious so the next thing we would do was open the eyelid and check the the eyes people that have used heroin often have pinpoint pupils and that's a that's a very big sign that they have overdosed and will check their breathing rate the respiratory rate for an adult is normally twelve to twenty breaths per minute and when people do take heroin effect know their breathing rate slows way down and then it stops and when a person gets in that into that state it's it's life threatening so if you give the person a dose of narcan it will reverse the effects of the opiate and a lot of a lot of time they'll start person with that with a bag that took up the oxygen the first thing they need is oxygen and i'll take a few minutes for the narcan to take effect so will will breathe for them for the next three to five minutes and then usually after about five minutes a lot of people will start to wake up they'll start to breathe on their own the breathing will come back to normal though a lot often turn blue the color welcome back to them when they start getting oxygen and hopefully they'll wake up if after about five minutes of rescue breathing we'll see them wake up will give them a second dose and sometimes a third dose we're finding we're using a little bit less but as the as the drug gets stronger and stronger we're using iron higher doses more doses and as long as as well as longer rescue breathing but through all the hard work of the police fire an e m t we're finding that we're