Edna Grant
Staff writer
Psychologists from Idaho State University recently received a grant of $1.1 million to spearhead a multi-layered program which focuses on the education and training of local professionals to better attend clients affected by opioid abuse.
South East Idaho, according to University of Michigan researchers, is one of the highest-risk areas for the national opioid crisis. The grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, also known as HRSA, was given to ISU psychologists Steven Lawyer and Samuel Peer to build of a system of resources for medical and mental health professionals to use when treating patients who may or could be affected by opioid abuse.
“If anything, we suffer because there are fewer clinicians who are actually trained on how to help these individuals,” said Peer.
The way Lawyer and Peer decided to go about tackling this issue is to train not only clinicians, but other community members who may have contact with individuals in need of help. These clinicians and community members would be offered the chance to participate in workshops over a three year time period, according to Peer.
“One of the things we found out is something called the Learning Collaborative,” said Peer. “You collaboratively teach people at multiple tiers. Not just your front-line clinicians, but also their supervisors and the individuals setting policy.”
The goal of Lawyer and Peer’s program is to reach people who are typically difficult to reach, according to Peer. Many people affected by opioids in the area fail to reach out for help because of the stigma surrounding substance abuse and mental health.
“We’re not just training whole agencies, but we’re going to train multiple agencies with different roles,” Peer said. The opioid problem doesn’t only pertain to one agency, according to Peer. It’s not just an issue for rehabilitation centers, but also an issue for hospitals, schools, mental health clinics, and law enforcement.
“We all know that we tend not to talk to each other,” said Peer. “We’re going to train them all together. We’re going to train them on how to help each other and refer to one another.”
Opioid abuse disorder in the United States has reached an all-time high in the last couple of years according to UoM researchers; Bannock county is one of the highest-risk counties.
Chris Daniels of the Hope and Recovery Resource Center in Pocatello acknowledges the need for trained professionals in the region. Over 20% of the cases Hope and Recovery tends to have problems related to opioid abuse, according to Daniels.
“We have a problem that definitely reflects the national problem,” Daniels said. He attributes Pocatello’s opioid problem to the ease of trafficking on the Interstate-15 corridor.
“On a national level,” he said, “they designated a list of the top risk counties in the nation, and Bannock county was on that list.”
