By Chapel Taylor-Olsen, BA; and Ashley Yaugher, PhD
The USU Extension HEART Initiative and Carbon & Emery Opioid & Substance Use Coalition just completed the last event in the 2021/2022 Community Opioid Education Dinner series this week (3/24) with an enthusiastic response with full enrollment! We completed nine prior events with a total of over 240 participants in this series.
Feedback thus far has been overwhelmingly positive, with participants stating that they “enjoyed every part of the presentation. It was fun and informative”; that they “started seeing myself in a different light”; learning “how to act in times of opioid crisis”; and “where I can find help on opioids and how to navigate the issue,” to name a few comments.
There is a lot of interest in our communities for learning about the overdose crisis and how we can all help support people with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) locally. Our communities are hungry for knowledge to continue to build hope and these events have all been fully enrolled. If you happened to miss them, fortunately, we have much of the event information available online through our website. You can view a complete recorded version of our 2019/2020 Community Education Dinner on our website (extension.usu.edu/heart/community-education-dinner) and a recorded version of our 2021/2022 webinar will be posted as soon as possible.
One of our primary goals for these events was to create awareness about local resources to support people with Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) and other mental health concerns, as well as their friends and families. To achieve that, a local SUD and Recovery Resource Booklet was collaboratively created to connect people to the resources available locally in Carbon/Emery Counties. These booklets are available for download on our website and we work to keep the online version updated throughout the year (extension.usu.edu/heart/resource-books).
To learn more about OUD and our events, visit our website. Also, keep an eye on our website for information on the next series that we’ll be offering (extension.usu.edu/heart). All of USU Extension’s upcoming events can be viewed on the USU Extension Upcoming Events calendar (extension.usu.edu/calendar).