 Can you hear me in zoom land? Come on, come on up. Great, good, so glad. All right, thank you all for being here tonight so much and thanks for being patient while we work through our technical issues. This is our first hybrid forum. We've done two forums so far. This is our first hybrid one. So there's a bit of a learning curve, but we're really excited to be able to offer this option as well. So thanks, thanks again. My name is Eva Zerat. I'm a public health specialist at Central Vermont Medical Center. I'm also the project coordinator for the Central Vermont Prevention Coalition. As I mentioned, we have been doing a series of community forums on drugs and alcohol. Across Central Vermont we've held two so far, one for the Montpelier and one for the Northfield area. And now we're here at U32 for a bunch of different funds. So a couple of logistics. You haven't gone through Zoom logistics so far in the pandemic. Congratulations. But if you could just keep yourselves on mute until you have a question and then you can use the raise your hand feature if you'd like to speak. The chat box is going to be monitored tonight. So please feel free to... And we have a Q&A session planned. So if you have an immediate question, feel free to ask it, but we do have a great Q&A session at the end. And we'd love to see your faces, but there's no obligation to have your camera on. We're going to be sharing a lot of resources tonight. For those of you in the room, we have printed sheets in the back that have all the contact information on them and a little bit more information about our coalition. If you're on Zoom, please feel free to screenshot, take photos, and we will send out a copy of that document as well. Lastly, I just want to take a moment before we get started to acknowledge that there are most likely folks here tonight, both virtual and a person who have been impacted by drug and alcohol use, whether it's their own experience or that of a loved one. And there may be people here tonight who have lost somebody to an overdose or to drug or alcohol use. And so we ask that you please keep this in mind when you are speaking, asking questions, and making comments. And we're really grateful that you're here and in the room with us tonight. All right, so I think we're moving the agenda. Next, is that ready, Lily? Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt. Just one thing. It sounds like somebody's trying to get into the Zoom, so I don't know if you can monitor the waiting room as well. I know it's a lot to operate at one time. Can I sit up there and attempt to monitor the waiting room? Yeah, let me see it in one way. Did you hear somebody mean it? I got a text that someone was trying to get in. Okay. I'll keep an eye out if I see it in alert. Oh, alert me. Perfect. Okay, thank you. Okay, so tonight we just did the welcome. We're going to ask you a few questions that are a little bit painful, but we have to ask them because we have federal funding. We're going to do a quick overview of drug and alcohol use in Vermont to set the stage of why we're here tonight and why we feel like this is important. We're going to share resources that are available for drug and alcohol use here in central Vermont, and we have people on Zoom and in person from some really amazing organizations. And then we're going to talk a little more specifically about prevention and youth, and then we'll stop talking, and we'll let the community ask questions, make comments, start dialogue, spark ideas, and we'll take some notes while this is going on and make sure that we're compiling everything that we have asked you. So we have one last poll, and we'll be done for the evening. Yeah, okay. So I'm going to go ahead and hand them out. Okay, great. So we have paper copies for those of you who are in person. And then on mine, we're going to launch a poll for you to please take. Thank you. Great, I see some answers coming in. I appreciate that. I'll just give it a few more seconds. Three, two, one. All right, thank you. And then we want to know who is in the room tonight. We're just going to launch another really quick poll to just let us know where you're from in Vermont and how you define your goal in the community. And you probably fit multiple categories. So just kind of as you're showing up here tonight, answer it in that way. And then just for helping us promote the event, letting us know how you found out about it. A couple more seconds. And then the last one, I promise, is just a two part question. This is for us to know whether it's or not. We're communicating to you what we're hoping tonight. So the first question is, if someone I know was struggling with drug or alcohol use, I would know what resources to point them to. And then the second is, there are actions that I can take to make my community a healthier place for young people. A few more seconds. Great. Thank you all so much for doing this poll. Okay. So what we'd like to do first before we get started is sort of set the stage of why we're even here tonight. I want to share some data with you that is statewide data. The first is that, can you just take the top of the lab part? This data comes from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. And Vermont has really high rates of drug and alcohol use. We pulled out one particular population, which is 18 to 25-year-olds. And you can see that in 2019, we were the first in the nation for illicit drug use in the past month in that age group. First for marijuana use in the past month and first for marijuana use in the past year. Third for cocaine use in the past year. Fourth for alcohol use in the past year. And fifth for binge alcohol use in the past year. And this is consistent. So year after year, Vermont continues to be one of the states with the highest use rates in the country. Next slide, please. And then it would be really difficult today to do this forum without acknowledging the impact that the pandemic has had on fatal opioid overdoses. So from the 12-year period, from March 2019 to 2020, there were 114 overdoses. And then in the following 12-month period, there were 211. That's an 85% increase year-over-year. And that's actually the fastest increase in the country out of all the states. So these numbers are really concerning. And it's what our coalition addresses, which you're going to hear about next. And it's why we're here tonight and hoping that we can share information and talk to the community. Okay, so what resources are available in Central Vermont to address some of these things that we just talked about? So the first thing I want to start with is the Central Vermont Prevention Coalition, which is likely heard of because we are the one sponsoring these community forums. The Prevention Coalition, there's an umbrella here which is really an umbrella organization under which are 30 to 40 organizations in Central Vermont that have all identified drug and drug values, substance use as either the key area that they work in or something that touches the lives of the people that they serve and that they want to work towards addressing. The coalition was started seven years ago or so by some emergency room doctors at CVMC who acknowledged that people were coming into the ED, they were seeking help and they were kind of handing them some pamphlets on the way out and didn't really know what was out there. And they said, we need to do more than that. So they gathered everybody in their room and seven years later, this group was meeting every month and has done some really pretty remarkable things, created some amazing programs, brought in a lot of funding. And it's starting a real big community engagement effort which is part of what we're doing here tonight. So Dr. Mark Deppin is one of the co-founders of the coalition. He's generally here but he is traveling. I'm the project coordinator and Olivia is an AmeriCorps VISTA serving us with us here as the community organizer. So we're really not the ones that have services to offer so I'm really excited to turn it over to those that do. And I'm going to start with Bettina Anderson from Mount Cares. I am so impressed I just want to say about this hybrid version because I do trainings a lot and I've done a hybrid once and I said never again. So this is maybe changing my attitude to hybrid trainings to make it more accessible. Thanks for being here in the room and on Zoom. My name is Bettina Anderson. I'm the harm reduction program manager at Vermont Cares. We are an aid service organization that started in the 80s and then in the early 2000s we brought on the harm reduction side of things too. We serve 11 counties in Vermont and in central Vermont our brick and mortar office is in Berry and we co-locate with the People's Health and Wellness Clinic which is at 51 Church Street. We are there every Monday. 95 people can just walk in. No appointment necessary. We also have two mobile vanes and each of our staff utilizes our own cars to literally meet people where they're at. We take them quite literal actually and so we bring all these services that you see here and more to people with our vanes or in the office. One of the most important things for me to tell everyone is that our services are 100% anonymous. We don't know people's names. We don't give out any information. You can imagine it can be really difficult for people to access our services. It's 100% anonymous and it is 100% free. One thing that is not on here yet as a service that I'm personally super excited about that we started two weeks ago is we now also offer low barrier and immediate access to Hooper Norphin which is Suboxone is the form that we offer in the moment to support their path to wellness and treatment. Besides what we do in our offices and with our mobile units we also work with community member schools we have been in for 32 actually a couple times as well as other law enforcement and other community organizations where we offer free trainings and one is on harm reduction and one is on opioid overdose education and how to use Narcan the opioid antagonism. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Okay, great. I'd like to turn it over now to Evan Smith from Central Vermont Medical Center to talk about drug and alcohol treatment available in Central Vermont. Hi Eva, can you hear me? I can hear you. Hi everybody. My name is Evan Smith. I'm a medical researcher at Central Vermont Medical Center. I oversee the hospitals efforts around medication assisted treatment for folks with opioid use disorder and do a lot of coordination across Washington County. Just one of the things I wanted to quickly share with you guys today even showing you some of the numbers about opioid overdoses and I wanted to kind of just share with you this most recent report on 2021 which had some of that data but Washington County of all the counties in the state has the highest rate of opioid deaths. I think it's just important for us to kind of recognize the impact of that in our own community. And then just another statistic that I came across recently was the Journal of American Medical Association had some information that showed that the difference between 2019 and 2020 was in the rate of alcohol related deaths jumped 25% from one year to the next when the pandemic started. And when you look back to when that data was first started being collected since 1999 the rate at which it's increased has never been greater than 2.2%. So for it to go from a rate of 2.2 to 25% is just unfounded obviously. And certainly a reason for concern for all of us in regards to ensuring people have access to substance abuse treatment. The numbers you see on the screen here are local numbers for our community MAT team at the Central Vermont Medical Center. So folks who are looking to get on medication assisted treatment or have information around trying to access substance abuse treatment we're there and we're more than willing to answer any questions folks have. There's also information here from the state by sponsored link here which is called Vermont help link. You may have heard of it. They were doing a lot of advertising recently regarding this service but what they do is they get people first appointments across the state of Vermont and they get people's services or intensive outpatient all the way down to individual counseling at services throughout the state. So just wanted to share that with you and looking forward to answering any questions you guys have regarding treatment. Thanks so much. Thanks Abed. Yeah I'm really glad you brought it to impact the alcohol as a practice maybe because they think opioids do get a lot of attention which it needs in real ways more than ever. Great so I'm going to turn it over to Bert Cleveland from Washington County Services Bureau to talk about treatment but very specifically for young people. Hi I'm Bert Cleveland I'm a licensed drug and alcohol counselor and I direct the healthy youth program or HIP which is a program of the Washington County Youth Service Bureau and we're now located in Berlin, Vermont downtown Montpelier for many years and just recently last year we located healthy youth program provides outpatient substance use education and treatment that's geared specifically to the needs of adolescents and young adults. We serve youth ages 12 to 25 years old and we utilize a holistic approach of treatment that emphasizes relationship building draws into a variety of treatment approaches to address needs and is flexible to the unique challenges of young people seeking treatment. I think that's one of the most important things is that they're not just little adults working with adolescents there's some real different things the way the brains operate and everything as we all know and so we really try to take that into account in the way we do our work. The Youth Service Bureau also provides a range of other programs for young people such as for mental health counseling, transitional housing services, the basement teen center in Montpelier all of our services are easy to access by calling the number on the slide and talking to our central intake staff. The only thing I'd like to say is that if you do think your child might be having an issue with drugs or alcohol the best thing you can do is reach out for some help and guidance. I don't want to wait for it to be a big problem or it doesn't have to be a big problem to justify doing this. Doctors, substance use counselors, school and mental health counselors, all of them can be helpful in just kind of helping you maybe get a better sense of what's going on and what are the next steps to take. At the Healthy Youth Program we're always happy to hear from you and try to answer any questions you might have. Thanks very much. Thanks for being here. Something I didn't call out out loud, sort of verbally from the previous slide is that the emergency department at Central Vermont Medical Center if you go there 24-7 you can receive you can begin and receive treatment for opioids and alcohol at any point in time and there are programs that assist them set up in place for people. I'd like to now turn it over to Hilary Tenton and Bob Purvis from the Training Center of Central Vermont. Hilary is in person. Bob is on Zoom so I'm going to let you guys figure out what you want. I think Bob can go first. Bob, we're going to have you go first, Bob. I was muted. Okay, my name is Bob Purvis and I'm the director of the Turning Point Recovery Center. We're located in Barrie but we serve all of Central Vermont. All of our services are free of charge to anyone. We are also completely confidential. We're a peer recovery center which means that everyone who works here has a personal history of an alcohol or other drug addiction and recovery from it. That's also true for me. I've been sober for almost 18 years now and my life has never been better. Because we peers have quote-unquote been there we're able to relate to people who are struggling with substances in a way that others can't. Our job is to help each person find their own pathway to recovery and there are many pathways to recovery. Our recovery center is a place where a person can go to receive individual or group support. We also provide a range of programs that can help people regain their health and enrich their lives. Our recovery center is also a place where people in recovery can meet and become friends with others who are doing the same thing and learn to once again have fun and play games while sober. Since this is a Montpelier audience or at least many of you I'm pleased to say that we are working in collaboration with the recovery department to provide recovery coaches to support individuals who come in contact with a police officer. The most important service we provide is recovery coaching and I'm now going to turn it over to our recovery coach program manager Hilary to explain. This is the right spot. Hi everybody. Hi everybody. My name is Hilary Denton and I am a person in long-term recovery as Bob said. We are all peers. We are a recovery coach program manager for The Turning Point. Recovery coaches are people with lived experiences and we are here to connect folks with local resources and help them navigate all stages of recovery but in particular early recovery. This is a critical time in a person's life when they are deciding to make a change. And as Bob just mentioned we honor many paths to recovery and we believe that there are as many paths to recovery as there are people. Coaching can happen in a variety of ways ranging from remote to in-person calls and texts and is a free resource and we support both individuals and families. Thank you for being here. And I'm now going to turn it over to our friend and ally Kathy. My name is Katherine Fazzano. I am a person in long-term recovery. I've been cleaning sovers since 2011. My life I I hit a really big in my life and I was addicted to opiates pretty much anything that you had that could get my thoughts different. I was addicted and I didn't care. I was involved with the Department of Corrections for 10 years federal and state. We didn't have peer coaching back when I committed my crimes when I was stuck in the mud I was one of the first people to get naltrexone for medically assisted treatment. I was one of the first to get buprenorphine. I was one of the first to get methadone and I got myself out of that and into recovery and my life has changed. The turning point was a huge asset for me during that me finding myself getting out of the mud. They were like a branch for me to be able to go and they didn't have recovery coaches then but my mother passed away in 2019 and it was a little dip again, like a little bump in the road and I had to get myself together and I could message Bob at any time and he was always there for me Hillary always there for me and I had to go through another transformation losing my mother and taking care of my disabled father owing it to them because I committed crimes against them and I needed to heal myself and heal my childhood and make that inner child grow and it helps me be a better peer support person. I currently work at life intervention at the Hilltop and I'm the team lead and it's amazing to be able to do this and have people actually look up to me and say I want to be like you it's an elating feeling like my body tingles with it like I just, when you sit and cry, I'm crying with you because I've lost my children my brother committed suicide my mom and dad have died and you can't throw anything at me because I can feel it with you when I will sit and cry and I will as a peer support my main goal about it is I want you to be okay right now because then didn't matter and tomorrow isn't here yet so don't be anxious about it right now what are we doing right right now and if you can get somebody you can change the way and I love doing that and yeah Bob's an amazing amazing person and he's a rock for me thank you guys I look forward to working with you guys more thank you Kathy thank you so much for sharing your story we're lucky to have you here tonight and the central rock community is really fortunate to have you working so hard for all the presidents thank you lastly, yeah lastly is prevention and we're going to turn it over to Ann Gilbert the director of central Vermont New Directions hi I'm Ann Gilbert I'm the director of Central Vermont New Directions Coalition which is based in Montpelier but we cover all of Washington County we've been a prevention organization for since 1998 I live in East Montpelier and our three kids have gone through Romney School and U32 and you know it's scary to think about all these statistics and all this data that we have about our close knit communities you know right here in central Vermont and yet we're on the map as really having high high rates so in prevention we're really talking about how do we stop before it starts I'm very concerned about the 12 to 17 year old kids who are in school and figuring out how to get enough information out to parents maybe engaging a bunch of different strategies to really work with your kids and then the 18 to 25 year old population we've got to start early when these kids are young we have funding from the Vermont Department of Health to address tobacco vaping alcohol, underage drinking cannabis use which is now retail cannabis stores will be opening in the fall and then prescription drugs so it's been privileged to work with all these community partners because it really does take a village and you know with all these different experts and parents who are the experts in their own families so I'm glad that you're all here and you'll see a number of different resources that you'll be able to utilize to contact us if you need to Thanks Thank you Ann and now I'm going to turn it over to Matt Whelan who's with the Vermont Department of Health to talk about some of the resources that they have Hey everyone my name is Matt Whelan I'm a prevention consultant and I serve the Bay Area region. I work for the states alcohol and drug abuse programs alcohol specifically provides community organizing support program planning and consultation we do presentations and trainings like this community grants information and guidance and information and referral in the community. There are 12 of us throughout the state so I'm your local prevention consultant for Central Vermont Eva Thanks Matt for being here So this is our panel that we brought to you all tonight they're going to be available in just a minute to answer questions that you might have and help facilitate conversation but before we get to that I'm just going to have Matt continue for a few minutes to talk about prevention of youth Great Thank you Eva So if you just indulge me for a minute and imagine a large river with a high waterfall and at the bottom of the waterfall hundreds of people are working frantically trying to save those who have fallen into the river and have fallen down the waterfall many of them drowning As the people along the shore are trying to rescue as many people as possible one individual looks up and sees a seemingly never ending stream of people falling down the waterfall and begins to run upstream One of the other rescuers yells Where are you going? There are so many people that need help here So the woman replies, I'm going upstream to find out why so many people are falling into the river As she heads upstream she notices bridges in various states of disrepair along the river. Some are strong made of sturdy components others are weak and debilitated with missing boards or flimsy railings it doesn't surprise her that most of the people falling into the river are crossing the poorly made bridges and those individuals that live near or travel across strong bridges of course all of the bridges along the river could use more reinforcement but it's easy to see which ones need the most attention In the stream parable we know that certain groups of people are more likely to fall into the river than others they don't fall in because of individual weakness or intrinsic flaws rather we know that some people are privileged enough to live in communities with strong bridges usually made from high quality materials that protect them from falling in and promote their safe passage across That's what primary prevention is all about We're working to get upstream of the problems So this is the third in a series of community forums that we're doing in central Vermont You may have noticed that we organized these by supervisor reunion One of the reasons is that we're able to dive in and analyze the youth risk behavior survey data that comes from the students who live in your community The health department gathers near census level data on young people in Vermont with that survey and we're very confident that it illustrates the risk behaviors and prevalence in their communities I want to start by just honoring that there are some major contributors to the root of this issue We have social inequities We have prejudices based on social categories of race class sexual orientation ability We have institutional inequities and the distribution of investments, wealth and power We have individuals with adverse childhood experiences and trauma, mental health conditions These are all root causes of substance use and addiction in the long term And we certainly have a duty to work on these things And a duty to make societal changes that are needed to confront addiction in the community through these things and to create overall health But these are extremely important things that we would struggle to change in a forum like tonight Awareness certainly is paramount but we need to make sure that we're also focusing on things that are important but are also changeable So we're going to focus on things that are actually changeable Hopefully you'll be able to leave the understanding of what you personally can do, what your family can do what your community can do to actually make some change Next slide So I wanted to bring some key points forward for you tonight One is that Washington Central has lower use rates for most substances when compared to the state and to the county So your school district when compared to the county and to the state is actually doing really well with the substance use rates and prevalence The second thing I want to bring forward is that Vermont's young people are among the highest users in the country for most substances So even though Washington Central has low use rates when compared to the rest of the county you're still in the top users when it comes to being a young person in the United States in general Lastly there are things that we can control to make change Next slide So I went through a couple of statistics here for you So if you'll bear with me I do want to bring these forward because your use rates are something that you should be proud of at least within the context of Vermont So here's the statistic for ever having had any alcohol The students in your school district are at 46% for that number This is high school students And in Vermont that number is 55% Here's that same metric for ever having used marijuana in your school districts at 36% and Vermont is at 40% Next slide For ever having misused prescription pain medicine Washington Central is at 7% and Vermont as a whole is at 9% Next slide And finally for those who have ever misused prescription stimulants Washington Central is at 4% Vermont as a whole is at 7% Next slide So you have those use rates but I do just want to point out that those numbers that we were looking at with 36% of students having ever had marijuana that's great when you compare it to the 40% in the state but 36% of students ever having had marijuana is still unacceptable and anytime that students are using substances it's impacting their brains and impacting their bodies and we certainly need to make changes to address that The survey also shows that fewer students in this school district drink alcohol and smoke marijuana before the age of 13 which is critical we know that early use of any substances puts young people at 4 times the risk of addiction issues later in life more students in this school district believe it is wrong for someone their age to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and that has a direct correlation with use more students believe that their parents would think it was wrong for them to use alcohol or marijuana which is also correlated with use and fewer students have access to marijuana and alcohol than students generally in the rest of the state so those things are really important how bad they think it is for them whether or not they think it's wrong for them to use whether their parents think it was wrong and whether they can actually get their hands on it those things really matter when it comes to youth use next slide so I want to just spend a little bit of time and just talk about what Vermont's youth use rates look like when compared to the rest of the country so this is the number for current use of marijuana having used marijuana in the past 30 days for Vermont that number is at 11% the rest of the country is 7% for marijuana use in the past 30 days next slide for alcohol use in the past 30 days Vermont's 12 to 17 year olds are at 12% United States generally for 12 to 17 year olds are at 9% next slide alcohol use in the past month regular alcohol use Vermont's 12 to 20 year olds 27% compared to the United States as a whole of 17% next slide binge alcohol use in the past month our 12 to 20 year olds in Vermont are at 17% in the United States as a whole it's at 10% next slide so it's important to think about the use rates that your school district has in the context of Vermont as a whole you cannot let your guard down simply because your use rates are lower than the county and lower than the state it's always sort of on the horizon and the use rates that you have the use rates in general for young people in the state are unacceptable and COVID we think will probably impact that negatively some of the risk factors like isolation and stress those things have been exacerbated by COVID-19 and we anticipate that use rates will rise as a result so there are things that we can change that contribute to use number one is the availability of substances and the access that young people have to them number two is the amount that young people know about the impacts of substances on their bodies and brains number three the amount of protective factors that are in a young person's life and number four are the community norms around alcohol and other drugs next slide so at home we protect our children and our families from lead asbestos radon cleaning chemicals bad drinking water all these things are in our home and we work hard to protect our children from those things and in my opinion it's time to add substances to the list alcohol cannabis tobacco vaping products prescription medications these are things that are poisons and they need to be kept away from young people at all costs next slide bear with me on this slide this one's a little bit wonky but it points out that there are some protective factors that we measure that have a direct impact on whether or not young people use substances what that chart on the right-hand side shows is that the young people in Vermont who ate dinner with at least one parent on four or more days a week engaged in substance use less the young people that feel like they matter to people in their community engage in substance use less young people that have one or more teachers or adults in the school that they can talk to if they have a problem engage in substances less and those who believe their school has clear rules and consequences for their behavior engage less in substance use and then finally those who feel sad or hopeless in the past two weeks when the survey was taken also engaged in substance use less so there are protective factors out there that add up that make a difference in young people's lives and bolstering protective factors can really make a big difference next slide the perception of harm is the number one reason that young people report the number one thing that correlates with use and with retail marijuana on the horizon we anticipate the perception of harm for marijuana going down meaning that young people are going to think it's less harmful and we see that with alcohol and we anticipate that to correlate negatively with marijuana use in young people and we anticipate seeing increased use community norms impact perception of harm the more young people are exposed to alcohol use the more young people are exposed to any use the less likely they are to think that it's harmful for them and the more likely they are to use and as alcohol continues to kind of work its way into the fabric of society that really damages and undercuts the perception of harm for young people and leads to more use in the long term next slide what you can do to make change so you can continue to monitor the availability of substances to young people making sure that they can't get their hands on the substances is a great way to prevent early use you can talk to the young people in your life about the impacts of substances on their bodies and brains talk early and often talking having 61 minute conversations is far more valuable than having one 60 minute conversation talking to young people early and often about their use and I'll show you a resource just after this slide from the Department of Health for talking to young people focus on bolstering the protective factors in young people's lives maintain strong school policies and procedures policies are one thing no school wants substance use with their students or on school grounds but the procedures are another navigating towards restorative justice that bring students who are using back into the fabric of the school instead of sending them away is one path towards having strong policies and procedures for substance use promote the screening of students and the referral of students to treatment through things like youth screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment next slide so here are some resources parentupvermont.org is our parenting website and I'll give you a little bit of a tour about what the first landing page looks like when you go there parent up gives parents facts and resources they need to talk about alcohol, cannabis, mental wellness and other issues Central Vermont New Directions Coalition is your local support for substance use prevention in Angespo next slide so here's parentupvermont.org the first landing page the prompts at the top are why is my child at risk how do I prevent, what do I look for how do I get support so sharing this resource with the parents in your life using it yourself if you have a young person in your life is one way that you can really kick off that conversation start having those hard conversations about use next slide and I will kick this over to Ann Gilbert to talk about drug take back day April 30th thanks everyone so one of the ways that we can really reduce access especially of prescription drugs is to get them out of our house and so the DEA and all of Vermont is really participating in drug take back day it happens every fall and every spring so on April 30th it's a Saturday it will be drug take back day we're hanging up flyers around town you'll see these it's on front porch forum so from 10 to 2 you can go to any of these 6 sites that the sheriff has coordinated at police stations in Northfield, Barrie City Montpelier at the Washington County Sheriff's Department and also with Kenny Drugs on the Barrie Montpelier Road and the one in Waterbury but if you can't do it on April 30th you can go before that we just want to sort of do this spring green clean up of get them out of your house by the end of April if you can't make it that day you can still go to any police station or the lobby at Central Vermont Medical Center or the Kenny's we also have free mail back envelopes and these can you can get these at any library or your senior center we'll be stocking all the town offices and all you have to do postage paid all you have to do is get your prescriptions put them right in there, seal it up drop it in the mailbox and it's being sent off to stair cycle to be incinerated we also have locking bags and boxes for people's medication this comes with keys and we have some free ones that are available to people at Central Vermont New Directions Coalition and through your town offices so we're really talking about locking things up or dropping them off or mailing them and then mail that down below so I hope everybody can take a look at what's lingering around in your medicine cabinets because that's the number one place where kids say that they have access to them is in their home or in their friends' homes hey great thank you everyone for speaking and sharing what you do in your amazing organization thanks to everyone for listening for the past 45 minutes almost what we'd like to do at this point is open it up if you have questions for any of the experts and the panelists that are here tonight we'd love to take your questions if you have comments, statements we really want this to be a time for community dialogue and we will take some notes while you all are speaking if you are on Zoom and you'd like to speak please use the raise your hand feature so I don't miss anyone and you can do that by using your reactions button in the bottom of your Zoom screen that's Larry from Easton-on-Pillare hey good evening everybody and thank you so much for a pretty interesting conversation here this evening at the risk of sounding like I'm questioning the data I want to question the data just I have a question about it because I was so struck by the beginning comments that showed Vermont youth use so extremely high compared to the rest of the country and I guess my question is does the rest of the country use YRBS as a tool for determining the use in their states if not are we really looking at an apples to apples comparison sure we're in apples to orange yeah so I think that Matt had to go but I can answer this question so yes the rest of the country does use YRBS it's conducted through the CDC and there's a set of standard questions that are asked of all students in all states and then schools can or states can add additional questions that they feel are relevant so Vermont for example asking questions about like do you wear your helmet while skiing which they wouldn't ask in Florida Florida probably asking about surfing and you know water safety that we wouldn't have here but there are these standard questions that are asked across the board and they use some really fancy biostatistic that work through all the data and make sure that after it they don't report on anything that the sample size is too small or wouldn't be you know usable information so that so yes so that's great I mean I'm really happy to know that because obviously that's crucial in this whole conversation so now I'm even more uncomfortable because I'm thinking why in the heck is Vermont so high I mean what is so different about Vermont than New Hampshire or Massachusetts or New York what is it that our kids are experiencing that puts them at higher risk than other places and you know using Matt's parable of the of the water you know why are so many of our kids fallen in the water it seems it seems I'm surprised by it simply because I generally think of Vermont as a largely safe community to live in I mean we devote a lot more resources to social services in Vermont than so many other states so maybe too big of a question for tonight but thank you for clearing up that issue about the data I appreciate that yeah I'm happy to answer it and I think it's kind of exactly in part why we are here tonight so I'd love to open it up to any of the panelists that are here if you have thoughts on that really important question Evan or Burt might have some interesting insight possible you know I honestly for me it's less important like how we how we stack up next to this state or that state I mean I'd be curious to see all the numbers you know sometimes it's not the differences are not huge I don't know but to me what's more important is is this an issue for youth in Vermont and I think to me that's what I take from those numbers in terms of why we might be higher than some other states yeah I'm I don't really know so much yeah maybe maybe someone else could speak to that I'm in my line of work which is sort of dealing with what comes to us you know so I think the important thing is that this is an issue in Vermont and you know any idea that you know because where it's the Green Mountain State and it's beautiful here whatever that you know drugs are not freely available around here and in every corner of the state it's just not true they are they are available and I mean that's what I really take away from those this is except the most important in terms of that question about why we might be higher than some other states I don't know I don't know the answer to that Kevin Smith there dare I say cultural norms you know I wonder about that when you when you drill down into the YBRS data a little bit more and you start bringing down my communities where there's higher rates and when we think of Washington County I correct me if I'm wrong I believe it's you know Montpelier in the Mad River Valley have higher rates comparative to your school district but you know I think when we look at this part of it is parental you know parental acceptance of this and they tend to have higher rates in those communities of you know issues around acceptance of well marijuana it's you know I smoke it it's expected and now we're moving forward to you know legal we have legal marijuana and we're going to be able to get it but you know it's now coming to the point where it's you know you've got the marijuana and you've got the alcohol in the house and they're all legal but the message really needs to be the parents are people who drink and smoke marijuana you know it's illegal for you to smoke marijuana and it's illegal for you to drink until you're an adult and then you get to make your own choices that's the thing that's pretty much a major in 1921 I just think it's I do think there's a lot of cultural norms and acceptance of teenager teenage exploration and use of drugs in this state compared to probably compared to some other states for sure if I could just piggyback and what you say the government's you know in addition to it being illegal very safe. And there's really no reason to think that alcohol has been legal for years. We know, you know, so is so are cigarettes. We know nicotine. We know tobacco, that's the word I'm looking for. You know, we know that these things are not safe. And marijuana didn't suddenly become safer just because it became legal. But I do think especially among young people that that's that's a bit of an assumption and not a good one because at the same time becoming legal, we're actually starting to get a lot more information that that suggests that that population, the the young population, the adolescent young adult population prior to their brains, you know, being completely developed at age 25 are probably the most at risk from long term effects of marijuana use. So it's kind of it's just sort of strange that those two things are happening at the same time to become illegal. And we're actually starting to get some some valuable research that says, you know, this this can be a very harmful drug, especially to young people. Yeah, I think all of these things are important that Evan and Bird have mentioned and thinking about intergenerational, you know, I mean, it's time to try to help break the cycle from, you know, the grandparents and the parents using the children are in the home. We're so thankful that there are so many recovery coaches that are helping an awful lot. But there are a lot of kids who just see this as normal. We're also, you know, on a highway when a lot of the drugs have been able to come into Vermont, either from New York or through Canada. And also, it's important for all the towns to really, really create a vision for what they want their town to look like. I mean, we're so happy to have all of this craft fear in these distilleries. It's really big for business. It puts Vermont on the map. But when kids are walking to school and they see bar after bar after bar, or they're, you know, they're at an outdoor family friendly event or a 5k, and the reward at the finish line is, you know, more beer. And we're looking at retail cannabis where towns are voting to opt in. Towns really need to take a look at where do you want those retail places so that adults can access it. But it's not kids who are seeing that all the time. We have learned so much from the tobacco industry over the years of not advertising anymore, not being able to, you know, smoke in public. And so the smoking rates went way down until the industry came up with vaping. And then they started creating a whole new problem. So we have a lot to learn. We just need to translate that into the alcohol and the cannabis issues as well. Okay. Thank you for a really thought provoking question. I think it's incredibly important. Did you have any other sort of follow up to that? Just one. Thank you. Thank you very much. And so I certainly agree with Burt that it really doesn't matter. In some ways, it doesn't matter what the number is, you know, one kid using is too many kids, right? I get that completely. But if there are states out there that are doing something really well in this arena, then, you know, let's let's find out what they're doing differently and see if there's lessons to be learned. Any other questions in person? Yeah, I'm wondering what employers are saying about drug and alcohol, substance use for youth, especially who whom they're employing or trying to employ. When we keep hearing that there are more jobs than there are workers. And we also see that we don't seem to have enough of a pipeline from high school to career minded jobs, as opposed to like entry level service jobs. But the employers really want them, you know, the employers are looking for more workers. And there's some kind of disconnect happening in there where our like graduating seniors aren't thinking who aren't going to college or don't have a tech immediate tech direction. They're not, you know, matched up with the employers. And I'm wondering if drugs, the substance use has something to do with that. To the audit to the zoom land here the question. Okay, great. So I don't know if so I'd like to turn it over and see if anyone has thoughts on that particular question about youth. But I know that not necessarily youth, but Bob could really speak to recovery friendly workplaces, which is a little bit of what you're speaking to right now. Bob, would you be willing to? Sure. We're seeing we part of what we do here is to help people connect with employment jobs. And we are seeing more and more employers are actively concerned about alcohol and other drug use in the workplace. And looking for solutions that don't mean just letting go of the employee. Of course, above a certain size, they have certain requirements under the American Disability Act to offer employees treatment. But but beside that, I just got a call today from from a teacher at Vermont Tech wanting wanting me or someone, one of us to go there and talk about what supervisors should be looking for with employees who are struggling. And how should they approach it? You know, what should they expect? And how can they work with the employee because they're they're more and more concerned about not losing people. And that's a good thing. Unfortunately, most small businesses don't have access to genuine employee assistance programs. But we're trying to you know, we've had conversations about trying to stand something up could be available to employee employers. We're not there yet. But I say so it's it's still a problem. Employers still by and large are struggling with this as well as their employees, but that they're trying to get better. And the key thing for employers is to know that substance use disorder is a disease. It's what the scientists call a relapsing disease of the brain, which means that you can't just expect them to, you know, go and sit no more. You know, a person can start into recovery, but they are almost always in are going to struggle and fall back that don't necessarily lose the progress they've made. So what's important is for employers to understand what kind of disease we're dealing with here. And so they can reach out and maybe get kind of professional help in evaluating what an employee might need. At a certain point, they may have to separate the employee. But short of that, there's a lot that can be done to salvage employees. If the employer knows enough about the disease model to to work with the employee, and to get the kind of help that can help them get back on their feet. Anything to add? Okay. So it doesn't directly answer a question. I don't know if we have a specific, you know, answer to use pipeline and to employment, but certainly, there are empty jobs. And there are folks who need employment, but might have difficulties due to criminal behavior that happened while they were actively using. And that's a little bit of what Bob is speaking to. And there are organizations, including World Health Working Fields that partners with employers, and they... Yeah, I missed the question. I missed the point of the question. And yes, and that's exactly it. You know, that, that, yeah, we work a great deal with people who are getting into recovery and in early recovery, working fields is a temp agency, essentially, that specializes in what they call second chance hires. So people coming into getting into recovery, working fields has contracts with different employers. And what the agreement is that, okay, we're going to send you somebody as a temp, and you'll pay us by the day. If it's a certain point you decide you want to keep them, then they'll become a permanent employee. In the meantime, we will provide them with recovery coaching so that they can become stable in their recovery and not relapse and get on a good pathway such that they can be a very productive permanent employee. And it turns out that they're very, they're very successful. They're doing very well. And the employees that are being hired are doing very well for the employers. But it takes a little bit for the employer to understand what this process is. Now, we have an arrangement with working fields that instead of using their own recovery coaches to support them, they're using ours. So for employers in central Vermont, if working fields has somebody working in a workplace, it's one of our recovery coaches that's going to be supporting them while they're doing that. Because then we can also connect them with other resources they might need. Thank you, Bob. Thanks for your question. I'm a nurse here and I just wonder what the best intervention or what would an ideal intervention look like if a student presented with drug or alcohol use on school? What would you all want to see? What would be a perfect scenario for our students in helping them get to it? So, on Zoom, the question is if a student is struggling with drug or alcohol use, what does that intervention look like in the school setting? It'll look toward Bert or Evan. Yeah. I mean, honestly, that's one of the trickiest things, the intervention part. I think what happens now typically is if the school becomes aware of a young person using substances, then that's when we get a lot of referrals for our program is they'll contact us and ask us to do a substance use assessment. Because one of the real tricky things about this is that there's a couple of ways it usually comes to light. Sometimes it's because there's actually evidence of drug use and sometimes it's about that you're seeing different behaviors and you're not always sure what's causing that. Substances is one thing to rule out there. It's just really always good to keep in mind that there's a lot of other things that could result in seeing unusual behaviors from young people, especially things like depression, anxiety, learning issues, a whole gamut of things that young people and older people can struggle with. I don't know that there's a perfect intervention. I think the things that I think it really helps to, I'm just wondering like is a situation you're considering sort of like a young person who's sort of not really interested in, you know, they're not interested in doing anything about their issue. But the fact that they have an issue comes to the attention of others. This is kind of what you're talking about. Well, I guess it's just a follow-through. Should schools follow through more with these students or should we hand it over to the parents and hope that that's hope for the best? I just, it's hard to get back and just hope for the best. Okay, that's helpful. I think, you know, I think this is one, one situation where more cooks are better, you know, because a message being delivered for more places is helpful. And I think there's a really important, I think there's a, I think for the schools, for, you know, to work with schools and parents and other resources like, you know, treatment providers like ourselves or other counselors, you know, there's a lot of power in getting the same message from more places. And, you know, one of the most important things in helping is, is helping the youth find a reason why they might want to do something different. I mean, that's such a, that's such a big deal. There's not a lot that you can do if people are not willing to participate. In other words, the person who has the problem is not willing to participate. So I think part of the power of hearing from more places, like I said, school parents and everybody working and people working together is being able to sort of say, well, look how this is impacting your life, you know, you also have people who are going to have a sense of what's important to this young person, maybe what, what things are that they might actually, what kind of life do they want to have, you know, and this is, this is not easy information. You know, somebody comes into us and does a drug and alcohol assessment or sits with us for an hour, you know, it's not like we know them, we're still strangers, you know, and so people who've had ongoing contact with the young person, I think it can be really critical because they're going to have a sense of that person and be able to maybe help them understand why this is not working so well for them and put that in the context of, you know, who they want to be and how they want to be in the world. So, you know, in terms of that, I think, so, so I think what is really useful from schools is, is not only, and I think this really requires participate cooperation in the schools and the parents is not only referring to kid for a drug and alcohol assessment, because what we do at the end of an assessment is we make recommendations, but, you know, having there be the follow through on that, you know, it really, it's really helpful if, you know, the school is encouraging follow through the parents are encouraging follow through all those things really increase the likelihood that somebody is going to, you know, one like get connected with with the help and, you know, follow through, follow through on at least trying to make an effort there and trying to be open to getting some of that help. Is that, is that a quick, okay, good. Okay. Yep. Thanks for, I think another challenge that schools might have is even identifying some students that might be struggling and we do have funding available for something called youth expert screening brief intervention and referral to treatment SBIRT where, and in this program schools receive tablets and students say in homeroom will take an assessment and answer some questions on the tablet about, you know, their current substance use some questions about self harm, mental health and then it will flag any students that rate sort of in a risky area for any of these different topics and alert school staff and school staff to develop their own protocols on site that they say, okay, here's how we're going to touch base with the students that we're concerned about. So that is a program that we can help bring to schools that I think is really valuable. It has shown several other schools across the state are using this and SBIRT is an evidence based model that has been implemented in across the nation and a wide variety of settings. But what a lot of schools have said is that it's helped to identify students that were just totally under the radar that they just were like not, didn't realize we're struggling and able to help them get connected and I thought it was necessarily treatment maybe right but they're getting referred to some support services in some way and it was quite a bit more about this than I did so if I missed anything please feel free to. Well I guess I just want to add that that it is available like Eva said that we do have funding and some of the schools are doing universal screening so they'll do all of the students or they might just do all the ninth graders to kind of see where things are at. So like with vision and hearing screening you would add this in? So you would do this like would that just be in addition to? It could be like them. Yeah it could be that everybody's going to take it and one of the nice things about it is when students are answering a question if it's pretty benign or they're saying they don't use and they just jump to the next question if they say that they are using you know it's like oh well how many days a week and you know it provides information about the substance in kind of a private way where kids can understand a little bit more about it and then there's a little bit of like a motivational interviewing component built into it and then like Eva said it's not like you have to wait a year for the youth risk behavior survey data you can get this information right away and so as school would you know have some staff available maybe you would clear your calendars for that week that you're implementing this screening so that you'll be able to follow up and find people who maybe already have a relationship with that student to even do help support yeah and I think the the other benefit to this is that so this program is that you're getting that data about that one student right if they flag in you hey you know who's you having some struggles with cannabis or whatever but you also get an aggregated report on the back end in real time so like and then it's not like you're waiting for a wider BS which is also really important and helps us be able to track how we're doing against the country as you saw but you would get this information about your school right now and where everything is at and you can start to use that to shift culture which as we heard is one of the things that would really impact youth rates so we have lots of information about this I'm really happy to share more with you and it also just occurred to me that my mom was a school nurse here I'm 25 years ago yeah yes so um I came here because I saw the statistics um posted in I don't know was the bridge or some other paper publication that I get and I just my job just dropped and I felt like I needed to well obviously find some why but some answers and unfortunately we don't have we're saying it's cultural maybe it could be um otherwise and so that disturbed me even more greatly because how do you fix that and and I mean y'all are doing a great job um getting word out whatnot I remember reading something when my kids are yet were younger about the meals having meals together and it really impacted me I don't know if that's getting out into publications or or whatnot I don't know if um there can be something these like little bullet points of as a parent this is what you can do for your children don't pass out in front don't use marijuana in front of them have meals together just like really a bolt like like no brainer kind of stuff um that seems pretty simplistic but obviously these are things that are going on in people's homes and um my my I have a 17 year old son and a 20 year old son they was attending U32 here my oldest son said to me several years ago he said mom you do realize that nobody sits down eat anywhere together because I that's what we do seven days a week at our house and I said what are you talking about and he's like doesn't happen I was astounded and I think because we're also flipping busy that we're off well Johnny's got this going on Matilda has this mom has this dad has this um nobody's in the house at the same time and when your kids are there they're in the bedroom unless you summon them out of their room so it takes effort as a parent to and someone's exhausted somebody's an alcoholic I I mean I mean to me it's absolutely overwhelming to think of how to solve this problem not even solve the problem but how do I address this so I guess I'm a little shocked and just trying to take it all in and I guess asking myself what I can what I can do um my kids don't use drugs or drink I thought it was just chance maybe not maybe I have had an impact and I don't even know what so that's saying a lot right there um can I respond to that yes we're so happy you talked about that because I think parent education and parent involvement is one is really such a key thing here and you're raising the alarm you know the sense of urgency that parents need to do something about this and every family is a little bit different and kids are involved in different things they're going back and forth between households so sitting down for dinner X number of nights a week might really not be possible I do have a friend who used to say it's family deserved and every once in a while and now we get their kids out of their room you know to either sit sit down together to do something there are some parents who are rallying together and saying okay we're going to talk about what our what our rules or guidelines are and we're all going to be on the same page so if my kids at your house they're going to be supervised there's not going to be alcohol available you're not going to look the other way you're not going to say I'm just going to take away the keys and let kids be kids you know they're out by a bonfire you know somebody's got to be there because you're right there's already so much alcohol and cannabis abuse going on so I think it's a lot of parent involvement and so a little bit more parent education of giving people the tips of what they can do and some things are not even occurring to parents for instance you know go get me a beer from the fridge you can open it for me or you know going out to dinner or going to a party and drinking a lot without having that conversation of saying I'm only going to have one drink because I'm driving the family home tonight you know same things out loud on a regular basis and one of the things we do know is the parents are the number one influence on their kids use you know they may experiment but if they keep coming back to knowing that the parents have talked about it that the parents would think it was wrong or not appropriate for them until they were 21 those kids have that have that in there so even if there's a blip very often they'll come back to that so like Matt said it's not just one 60 minute conversation you know it's 61 minute conversations and that's where parent up can really really help and there's also another site on the health department website called let's talk cannabis which addresses some of that but you know have it you know people have book groups it'd be nice to have parent groups of you know what's this going to look like for prom or you know graduation yeah I wanted to just bring that up like I so I have a senior and it's been COVID right yeah I don't think I've had one bit of parent education and I have an older child too yeah one bit of parent education has you know landed in my lab yeah I'm sure it's been out there yeah but yeah I think it's easy right yeah past three years yeah and and I don't know if there's anything in place for prom or for graduation to be you know well one like we haven't even seen each other and two I don't think the schools are doing anything anymore for you know project graduation alternative stuff and then like to be honest haven't even occurred to me in the last who would have a problem yeah and now we are so like oh my gosh it's like next month right and this is an unusual time absolutely and so um burnt clavins um with Washington uh county youth service bureau and new directions are putting together um you know some parent presentations and so you know if we have your email we will add you to that list and um that's a good topic right there you know just have a couple of things to add to those points I know that we're right on about 730 um one is that um and this is going a bit back to Larry's point from earlier one of the things that's different and unique about Vermont is that we are rural state um and I think that we sometimes forget that's an even Montpelier and Barry are rural by federal you know qualifications and rural people in surveys um rural people they tend to feel more self-reliant and like they should be able to take care of their problems on their own without reaching out for help whereas in the city it's different and you might be a lot more likely to just quickly knock on your apartment neighbor's door or the the connections are just different and and study after study has shown that mattering to the community and feeling like you're a part of the community and um having an adult other than your parent who you are connected with are really big protective factors in you uh in in reducing risky behaviors in you and so I think that that's something to consider like is there a you you know a very young person in your life that you could really connect with um and you may they may roll their eyes at you or look like they're not listening but they really are and that's really important and I think that that piece about this rural attitude of sort of like I can do this on my own and being disparate and isolated and often far away from other people than out on a pandemic right that's made that a lot worse you can start to see where some of those things are challenging in a in a rural area so it is something to consider um and what makes us sort of different and unique but that mattering community is really really an important piece any other questions okay great well I want to thank you all so much for being here tonight we have so much pizza so please take some pizza sorry zoom um I can put the pizza emoji in the chat but um what we'd like to do