By Ashley Yaugher & Emma Campbell; Carbon & Emery Opioid & Substance Use Coalition
We want to thank everyone who attended and was involved in developing, advertising, helping with set up/take down and making our community education events successful! The Carbon & Emery Opioid & Substance Use Coalition education event series is now complete and was a great success thanks to our strong communities coming together to improve health and wellness in our rural counties. With funding from the Utah Coalition for Opioid Overdose Prevention (UCO-OP, UDOH) and collaborative coalition efforts, we held six education events over the past year and distributed 1,334 resource books throughout our communities.
We are excited to report that our educational events served over 289 community members in Carbon and Emery counties and the responses we received were overwhelmingly positive. The majority of survey responses showed that attendees either agreed (4/5) or strongly agreed (5/5) with our four main focus areas. Specifically, our results showed an overall average above 4/5 rating for: (1) improved prevention and treatment understanding, (2) improved perception of opioid use disorder treatment, (3) improved resource awareness and (4) improved response likelihood during a medical emergency (Naloxone). We also gathered main takeaways from attendees, including that “Awareness is so important within the community,” “There are several resources to help…” and “Prevention works, treatment is effective, recovery is possible!”
Our final event was held on June 2 for Green River residents and was held online in a webinar format. If you missed it, you can still watch the event and get all the information provided. The event materials (presentation slides and resource books) can be viewed online as well as the presentation recording, by following this link: extension.usu.edu/heart/community-education-dinner.
Special Thank You
This event would not have been possible without each of our community members, agencies and funding partners. Thank you all for your support and continuing to learn with us on this journey in our little cities of hope! We especially want to thank our Carbon & Emery Opioid & Substance Use Coalition members and community partners, including:
- Members of the Utah Coalition for Opioid Overdose Prevention (UCO-OP)
- Members of the Carbon & Emery Opioid & Substance Use Coalition
- Carbon & Emery County Community Members
- Members of the Utah Rural Opioid Healthcare Consortium (UROHC)
- Event Attendees & Community Members
- Four Corners Community Behavioral Health
- Southeast Utah Health Department
- Carbon County Commissioners and Mayors
- Emery County Commissioners and Mayors
- Eastern Utah Spine and Pain
- Carbon Medical Center
- Green River Medical Center
- Castleview Hospital
- Carbon County Sheriff Offices, Local Law Enforcement & Emergency Medical Services
- Emery County Sheriff Offices, Local Law Enforcement & Emergency Medical Services
- Emery County Attorney
- Carbon County Attorney
- Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness (USARA) & Recovery Community Center
- Eastern Utah Women’s Health
- Positive Pathways
- ETV News
- KOAL Radio
- Utah State University – Eastern & The SUN Center
- Utah State University Extension & HEART Initiative
- USU Extension HEART Health & Wellness Interns
- Everyone else who was involved in advertising, helping set up/take down and making our events successful
If you have any questions, want to be added to the bewsletter to keep you informed on future events like this or want to get involved with the Carbon & Emery Opioid & Substance Use Coalition, please contact Ashley Yaugher by email at ashley.yaugher@usu.edu.