Greene County Times

Through its continued Trauma Informed Practices efforts, Clark State College has implemented CORE: Campus Opioid Response Education. The program includes training for the use of Opioid Rescue Kits which have been made available on campus.

CORE was established to create a culture of safety, connectivity, and empowerment for students, staff and faculty while on campus.

CORE training is now available to students, faculty, and staff members who are interested in the voluntary training opportunity.

“Clark State has implemented the use of Opioid Rescue Kits which are located next to the Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs)on campus,” said John Lemen, director of risk and emergency management at Clark State. “The Opioid Rescue Kits went active the week of December 12, at the Springfield campus locations and will roll out to the other locations in the following weeks.”

Lemen said Clark State recognized the need to have the resources available following recent opioid related stories of students overdosing in schools or on campus across the United States.

“With the increase of fentanyl overdoses Clark State wanted to be proactive in the approach to handling these situations should they arise on campus,” he said.

The rescue kits were funded by Project DAWN (Deaths Avoided With Naloxone) - a network of opioid overdose education and naloxone distribution programs (OENDP) coordinated by the Ohio Department of Health. Opioid Rescue Kits are mandated in seventeen states across the United States, though Ohio does not have a law mandating the Opioid Rescue Kits.

Lemen said Clark State is the only known school in the Clark County or surrounding area who has implemented this program at this time.

In September of 2020, Clark State received $1,587,096 from the Title III Strengthening Institutions Program grant. The college utilizes the funds to implement trauma-informed practices.

The goal of Clark State’s Trauma Informed Practices initiative is to increase enrollment, student success, retention and completion by supporting Clark State students holistically in order to reduce stress and improve mental health.

Other important features of trauma-informed practices include a power dynamic that fosters partnership between the service provider and service recipient, maximizing a person’s choices and control over a situation, basing interactions in relational collaboration and emphasizing strengths, adaptations and resilience over symptoms, and more.

CORE opioid rescue kit training will be held at the main campus in Springfield. For more information or to schedule training, individuals should contact JJ Peck, peer recovery support coordinator at Clark State, at peckj@clarkstate.edu.

Original source can be found here.