Commitments promised after Thursday’s inspiring opioid summit

PALMER — By any measure, Thursday’s Alaska Wellness Summit, focused on eradicating the epidemic of opioid addiction, was a rousing success.

Big-name speakers, including the deputy secretary of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Surgeon General, and the summit’s emcee and creator, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) captured everyone’s attention inside the Massay Theater on the Mat-Su College campus. But maybe the most important part of the event was the breakout workshops in rooms at the Machetanz Building.

There, attendees to the conference got a closer look at not only their responsibility in dealing with the growing problem of opioid dependence in their communities, but practical strategies they could take with them.

“I went into one that had people in long-term recovery. I really appreciated the way it was solution-focused,” said Chelsea Fields. “Instead of rehashing negative statistics or anecdotes pretty much every one was aware of, they focused on hope, and how we, as a community, can support people going through addiction.”

Like Fields, Stephanie Allen works with the Mat-Su United Way and plans to apply what she learned Thursday to her work there.

“Hopefully, we’ll hold ourselves accountable, each in our own way to reach out to others,” Allen said. “Today, I really gained a lot of relationships, too, and I intend, on my own personal efforts to reach across the community.”

Perhaps the best scoreboard tallying future success against the war on drug addiction is in the courtroom. Superior court judges Greg Heath and Vanessa White were able to break away to catch some of the afternoon speakers.

“From what I heard, it was inspiring and really timely, addressing some of our concerns from our point of view,” Heath said. “It comes down to lack of resources to community involvement. That was all emphasized and I was really encouraged by the turnout — an amazing bunch of people.”

White hopes everyone from the politicians to the doctors, and those in the legal system keep to the promises made Thursday.

“One of the best comments I heard was, ‘we need to organize the organizations’ to have that network of resources brought together under one big umbrella,” White said. “We’ve been working very hard on our own outreach through primarily therapeutic courts, and we’re building a new one that will hopefully be up and running sometime in 2017.”

White said the number she’ll most be keeping an eye on to determine success is the number of children under state care.

“Just in terms of kids removed from families, that number has quadrupled in the last 10 years,” White said. “Last year, just in the Valley, 242 were removed from homes… a vast majority of those involve substance abuse or mental health issues, or both. As of yesterday, there were 166 this year, so we’re on track to hit 300 — that’s a tremendous increase.”

Palmer City Councilman and state legislature candidate Richard Best said opioid addiction is a problem nearly every Alaskan can relate to.

“It was a lively discussion with passionate people with true concern,” Best said. “It’s a problem we need to have solutions to. I’m very impressed with the Senators stepping up… They’re at least talking about it.… They talked about commitment in there; we’ll see how that turns out.”

Contact editor Matt Hickman at 352-2268 or matt.hickman@frontiersman.com