WINONA LAKE - Saturday, Aug. 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day, a global campaign to end overdoses, remember those who died and acknowledge the grief of loved ones left behind.
The effort was marked locally Friday evening at Winona Lake Limitless Park.
Tammy Cotton, Living In Transition Effectively (LITE) executive director, explained, “We just put together this event - Fellowship Missions, Bowen Center, KCODE (Kosciusko Coalition On Drug Education) and LITE Recovery. So we just wanted to plan and bring awareness to the community and let people come and remember those they’ve lost to overdose death.”
Friday’s event included tables of information, but also black card-stock balloons for people to write messages on to their loved one who died from overdose, or they could simply write the person’s name on a balloon. The balloons were then put on sticks so they could be displayed where people would see them.
“It’s just supporting each other,” she said. “... September is National Recovery Month, so we’ll roll right from this into Recovery Month.”
Starting at 5 p.m. Thursday, at the Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center, the public is invited to an evening of dinner, learning and community support at the Communities Recover Together event. This collaborative effort, supported by several community partners in Kosciusko County, invites the public to engage in how to address the issue of substance misuse. The event will feature a keynote presentation by Judge Linda Davis. It starts at 5 p.m. with the keynote presentation followed by a Q&A session at 6 p.m.
Regarding local overdose death numbers, Cotton said she talked to County Coroner Tyler Huffer on Thursday about it.
“We’re at seven this year, and last year at this time we had 15. So, numbers are going down, so that’s good,” she said, adding that she was feeling optimistic. “Something’s changing those numbers. I’m hoping it’s awareness. I’m hoping it’s people being loud about it, and I think the access to Narcan is a big part of it. We have several Naloxone boxes within the county. We have one in Milford. I know Bowen Center has one in Syracuse and in Warsaw. There’s one downtown Warsaw, and we’ve got another one we’re looking to place in Claypool somewhere.”

    Each black card-stock balloon has a message to a person who died from drug overdose. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Other organizations that have helped, she listed, include Narcotics Enforcement Team 43 (NET 43), Jail Chemical Addiction Program (JCAP) and the new Kosciusko County Community Recovery Program (CRP) in the jail.
“So, one of the big things that we’re trying to do with our peer recovery coaches, in partnering with the sheriff’s department, is working with those people, while they’re incarcerated, so they don’t go back out and reuse. It’s getting them plugged into resources and Bowen Center - whatever it might be - and giving them that support, walking alongside them, so they’re not going back to the same people, places and things,” Cotton said.
She also brought up the Suicide Overdose Fatality Review (SOFR) Team that started in March thanks to an Indiana Department of Health grant LITE received. Everyone has a seat at the table, from EMS to the coroner’s office and law enforcement and more, meeting every month to talk about implementing new strategies. They also look at cases where people have died, either by suicide or overdose.
“The coroner brings that information and then we all talk about that one specific person and figure out where were the gaps. Was that person going to Bowen Center? Had they stopped going to Bowen Center? Were they plugged in here? Had they been to the hospital? What drugs were they on? What was in their system?” Cotton said. “We look at all that and then we determine, what are some gaps that we need to fill to prevent this from happening to somebody else?”
Some other counties who already have a SOFR Team include Marshall and Whitley.
“It’s intense. We’re drilling down and figuring out what happened to this person. Why did they end their life this way? Or why did they overdose and die?” Cotton stated.
In the short time the SOFR Team has been meeting, two new programs have been started.
Handle With Care is a notification system, said Heidi Blake, KCODE.
“Typically, it will come from law enforcement and can really come from any first responders. If there’s a child that’s on scene at a potentially traumatic event - so it could be a wide variety of events, anything from a death of a loved one, domestic violence, it could be substance abuse related call - they can do a notification to the school that that child was on scene at a potentially traumatic event. They do not release any information to the school other than the child’s name and the title ‘Handle With Care,'” Blake explained.
The school is then an extra set of eyes on that child, to make sure the child is going to school, not exhibiting any set of behaviors that are trauma related, but if there are, there are procedures in place.
“It’s not uncommon for children, unfortunately, to be on scene at potentially traumatic events,” Blake said.
The second program being implemented is Community Reenforcement And Family Therapy (CRAFT) through another grant. Cotton said they just had a training at the Health Pavilion last week.
“We did a train the trainer. So we had 10 people attend and get trained to lead this program. It’s a 12-week session, and it’s just teaching family members how to deal with their loved one who’s struggling, how to help them find help, how to not enable them, but support them, and also provide support for the family,” Cotton explained.
Blake said it’s almost unheard of for a SOFR Team to have two projects implemented within a short amount of time like there is here in Kosciusko County.
Kosciusko CRP Resource Navigator Shanna Wallen attended Friday’s event because last January her ex-brother-in-law had an overdose, from which he died. His family also was in attendance.
“And just to kind of share with people about KCRP and what I’m doing in the jail and helping people not keep coming back to jail. Helping people in recovery,” she said.
Mike Murphy, Bowen Center, said he was there because, “We engage with our patients in recovery services, and it’s great just to come to an event like this, knowing that they’ve experienced loss, and support our patients in that way.”
Ciara Bolling, Fort Wayne Recovery and Allendale Treatment community outreach and recovery support specialist, explained, “Allendale is a detox and residential. It’s located up in Auburn, Indiana. We have our after-care facility in Fort Wayne. I cover all of Kosciusko County, and we’re just here to support. We’re here to be an extra resource, so my job is to resource navigate for different people, regardless of whether or not they can come to Allendale. So we just want people to know that Allendale is a big supporter and that we support just the entire community outside of just the Fort Wayne area.”