LYNN — North Shore Community College has been awarded nearly $1 million in grant funding that will enable the college to establish a program that will train students on how to support people with opioid addiction.
Awarded through the Health Resources and Services Administration, the $956,188 Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program (OIFSP) grant will fund the new initiative from this month to August 2024.
The program aims to enhance and expand community health worker training and job opportunities for paraprofessionals that target children, adolescents and transitional-age youth whose parents are impacted by opioid and other substance use disorders, as well as parents and family members who are in guardianship roles.
A lot of families struggle, especially when they have young adults dealing with opioid addiction, said Steven Chisholm, professor of NSCC’s Drug/Alcohol Rehabilitation Programs, explaining that he gets a significant number of calls from parents seeking ways to help engage their kids.
“There’s really not much in the way of resources for parents,” said Chisholm. “Just trying to navigate the treatment system is really daunting for families. Then there’s the issue of what facility to send your son or daughter to. There’s a lot to consider.”
What exacerbates the situation is the stigma around seeking help for addiction, said Chisholm, explaining that it is crucial for community-health workers to have the necessary knowledge to immediately meet the needs of people struggling with addiction or their family members.
The funding will be used to expand NSCC’s existing Community Health Worker credit and noncredit programs, which will allow the college to train students in specialized addiction support services to families impacted by addiction.
Community-health workers are frontline staff who apply their unique understanding of the experience, language, and culture of the populations they serve to provide direct services, such as informal counseling, social support, care coordination, health screenings, and advocacy for individual and community needs.
Program participants will receive tuition and fee assistance that will cover most of the cost, and NSCC leadership anticipates that 50 percent of the participants will go on to be trained in a registered-apprenticeship program, which includes a $7,500 cost of living stipend for those participating.
In addition, NSCC will partner with MassHire’s North Shore Workforce Board and North Shore Career Center to develop an apprenticeship training model that will provide on-the-job experience and technical training. Other grant partners include Bridgewell, Beth Israel Lahey and the Lynn Community Health Center.
Chisholm anticipates that 80 students will complete the year of training over the course of the four-year grant period, and 40 students will move onto the apprenticeship level.
“This OIFSP funding comes at an opportune time as public support for addressing the opioid problem in the Commonwealth is growing,” said NSCC Interim President Nate Bryant. “Essex County is an area of high need/high demand for workers trained in opioid use disorder and other substance use disorders.
“The state has invested recently in anti-stigma campaigns, insurance companies are reimbursing treatment for those who struggle with substance use disorders more equitably, and the media is championing the need to address the opioid crisis and nonviolent drug offenders more comprehensively. According to regional statistics, employer demand for substance use disorder and related specialists has a five-year growth projection of 22 percent.”
Chisholm added the Lynn community, with its high poverty rate (18 percent compared to the 12.3 percent national average), will benefit greatly from the tuition, fee, stipend-supported training, field placement and apprenticeship components of the program.
Since the college has a campus in Lynn, which has been hit particularly hard by the opioid epidemic, Chisholm said they were well-positioned to try to enhance services in the community.
According to the state Department of Public Health, Lynn was ranked sixth in the state for the highest amount of opioid overdose deaths in 2019, with 55, which was four more than the city had in 2018.
Lynn had 348 heroin overdoses in 2019, and there were 185 overdoses in the first six months of this year, according to the Lynn Police Department.
But it’s not just Lynn, said Chisholm, citing health statistics that show the state and Essex County have an overdose rate higher than the national average and one of the highest opioid-related death rates in the country.
While Chisholm said more lives have been saved with the use of Narcan, or Naloxone, the lifesaving overdose drug that police now carry in their cruisers, the same amount of people are still overdosing.
“It’s still a crisis,” said Chisholm.
