Mercer County Awarded Grant In Expanded Addiction Battle

Mercer County will receive a grant under a new initiative enacted by the Attorney General’s Office to combat opioid addiction, authorities announced on Tuesday.

The county will receive an “Operation Helping Hand” grant for about $58,000, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced. “Operation Helping Hand” is a groundbreaking program developed in Bergen County in which law enforcement officers working with community health partners proactively engage individuals suffering from addiction and provide access to treatment and recovery support services.

The grant will help expand Mercer County's “C.A.R.E. (Community Addiction Recovery Efforts)” program, which was launched by the Robbinsville Police Department in 2016. It then expanded to all local police departments in the county.

The C.A.R.E. model activates recovery coaches when police arrest an individual for a low-level crime and assists law enforcement in linking individuals to treatment and/or recovery services. As part of the Operation Helping Hand program, the “C.A.R.E. Task Force” was formed to centralize the coordination of the C.A.R.E. program under the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office and expand

existing and diversionary efforts and partnerships, including non-arrest outreach to those identified as having addiction issues prior to any involvement with law enforcement.

Meeting monthly during the grant period, the “C.A.R.E. Task Force Steering Committee” was established to employ a multi-disciplinary approach to reviewing and addressing overdose "hot spots," and provide appropriate resources, response and intervention in those areas.

Additionally, Rowan University will provide a subsidized continuing education program for New Jersey health care professionals. The program is designed to help them spot signs of opioid addiction and prevent addiction among their patients.

The third component of the plan is the launch of an Integrated Drug Awareness Dashboard (“IDAD”), an opioid data “dashboard” that allows state agencies engaged in the fight against addiction to exchange and analyze information. The goal is to present a more comprehensive picture of the impact of the opioid epidemic in New Jersey and to better inform strategies to fight it.

“There’s much more to be done, but we are making important progress in our fight against the opioid epidemic in New Jersey,” Grewal said. “We are deploying law enforcement resources to promote treatment and recovery for individuals suffering from addiction. We are educating healthcare professionals to help them better prevent addiction in the first place. We are ensuring that our law enforcement strategies are informed by the data. And we are doing it all by building partnerships with other state agencies, county and local partners, and the private sector.”

Grewal developed Operation Helping Hand as a new way to combat opioid addiction in Bergen County while serving as the County Prosecutor in 2016.

The program expanded to five counties in June 2018, when over 150 people encountered by law enforcement officers over a five-day period chose to pursue treatment – meaning in-patient detox, or in-patient treatment, or intensive outpatient treatment, or medically assisted treatment, or a combination thereof – or recovery support services.

A total of 17 counties in New Jersey are expected to participate in Operation Helping Hand as part of the expansion. The expansion is being funded with $1 million in federal funding, which the New Jersey Department of Health ("DOH") received from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and sub-granted to NJ CARES.

The New Jersey Opioid Medical Education Program, which is a partnership between Rowan and NJ CARES, is expected to go live this summer. The Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine will run and develop the program. Funding for the project comes from the $100 million Gov. Phil Murphy committed to combating the opioid epidemic in this year’s budget.

The program will help satisfy New Jersey’s requirement that healthcare professionals get one hour of continuing education on prescription opioid drugs every two years. Professionals will have the opportunity to participate in a live webinar or view online videos.

The curriculum will include evidence-based information on responsible prescribing practices, alternatives to opioids for managing and treating pain, and the risks and signs of opioid abuse, addiction, and diversion.

As part of its agreement with NJ CARES, the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine will roll out six one-hour educational videos over the course of the year.

The first video, expected to be available in June, will be designed to offer prescribers – physicians, dentists, advanced practice nurses, optometrists and veterinarians – an overview of best practices for prescribing opioids and complying with relevant laws.

Three additional videos will focus on the important roles that nurses, pharmacists, and mental health professionals play in caring for patients suffering from pain and substance use disorders.

The two remaining videos will offer all licensed professionals subject to the continuing education requirements a more in-depth understanding of medication assisted treatment as well as screening techniques and harm reduction strategies.

The launch of the IDAD will allow officials from across the Department of Law & Public Safety to exchange and analyze important opioid-related data that previously has been kept in separate silos within each agency. Plans are underway to enhance the IDAD to include other state agencies and to expand the types of data included in the system, including public health data.

The initial version of the IDAD integrates opioid-related data from the New Jersey State Police and the New Jersey Prescription Monitoring Program into one centralized database accessible to authorized users from different divisions.

Data now available through the IDAD includes the number and types of prescription opioids being dispensed throughout the state and the locations of heroin, fentanyl and other opioid-related arrests.

Information gleaned from the IDAD will help create a holistic picture of New Jersey’s opioid environment that will aid state agencies in developing and analyzing data that can be used to target intervention initiatives, enhance public outreach and education efforts, and develop other data-driven solutions to the opioid epidemic.

Grant funding for the IDAD comes, in part, from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Program.