Wednesday evening, May 20th, members from the community attended a town hall meeting at Hebron High School titled, Community Matters. Four experts from the substance abuse field spoke about prevention and the drug problems in Porter County.
Aaron Kochar, Director of Prevention for Porter-Starke shared with the audience the need for parents to talk to their children and be honest as children understand when parents are not being truthful. He discussed the large increase in prescription medication abuse and how that has led to heroin use, abuse and addiction.
Rodrigo Garcia, Executive Program Director of Parkdale Recovery Center, talked about probability. Children have a one in ten chance of becoming an addict. Prevention is the easiest and cheapest way to lower that number. “If you don’t capture them at the preventative side then it becomes Catch Me If You Can,” noted Garcia, referring to the novel and movie of the same name.
Chuck Harris, Porter County Coroner, noted the ways in which the community is working together including the use of Naloxone by law enforcement and emergency medical professionals and the recent creation by the Porter County Sheriff of the Heroin Overdose Response Team. Together, these and other efforts are making a positive impact in the community.
Emily Kirk, Regional Director for Addiction Recovery at Corizon, asked community members to “stop the judging, stop the shaming.” Communities that ask for help and members and parents that ask for help are on the path to hope. The secret of Porter County’s substance abuse problem is out and there are groups, individuals and organizations that are willing and able to help.
A member of the Indiana Attorney General’s Prescription Drug Task Force, Garcia, when asked about Porter County’s chances for positive prevention measures, said that the county is doing very well given the presence in the fight by law enforcement and treatment working together.
Dedicated to reducing substance abuse in Porter County, the Substance Abuse Council is the county’s founding coalition working together to battle substance abuse. A member of the Governor’s Commission for a Drug Free Indiana, the Council is in its 27th year providing funding to the community.