A Toolkit for
Prevention
TIFFANY WRIGHT
WVSOM’s Center for Rural and Community Health has teamed up with
the Greenbrier County CARxE Coalition to wage a battle against the opioid
epidemic through the “Prescription Opioid and Heroin Awareness Toolkit,”
a resource guide that is impacting the entire state.
Editor’s Note: To receive a county-specific toolkit, contact
the Center for Rural and Community Health at http://crch.
wvsom.edu/contact-crch or call (304) 793-6571.
One of the main components of West Virginia School of
Osteopathic Medicine’s (WVSOM) mission is to serve, first and
foremost, the state of West Virginia and its residents’ health
care needs. To strengthen WVSOM’s efforts, its Center for
Rural and Community Health (CRCH) was created to improve
the health and well-being of West Virginians and positively
change the state’s health profile through research, education
and outreach opportunities. Today, the CRCH works with
community-based organizations to reach these goals.
“Having successful community partnerships is important
because there is more strength in numbers,” says Drema Mace,
Ph.D., the CRCH’s executive director. “By collaborating, we
can build an infrastructure that benefits the overall health of
our communities.”
One such collaboration is that of the CRCH and the Commu-
nities Addressing the Prescription Opioid Epidemic (CARxE)
Coalition. Together the two have developed the “Prescription
Opioid and Heroin Awareness Toolkit,” a prevention guide
that uses education, awareness and resources to combat the
drug epidemic and is being used as a model for toolkits for
other West Virginia counties.
Launching the Toolkit
The original idea for a drug awareness toolkit in Greenbrier
County was developed at a CARxE Coalition meeting in 2016.
During the meeting, the group identified three opiate use
prevention goals to address: education and awareness, data
collection and resources. A toolkit was shared and recommended
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
by the local United Way in that same meeting, and the template,
adapted from Washington County, WI, was further developed.
After a year of discussion, the CRCH and the CARxE
Coalition finalized the “Prescription Opioid and Heroin
Awareness Toolkit.”
“We felt it was the perfect vehicle for us to combine our goals
and come together to create a tool that would help anyone in
our county, no matter how or if they have been affected by
opiate use,” says Kim Estep, co-chair of the CARxE Coalition.
“It is amazing that the work of our local coalition has now
turned into an invaluable tool for others.”
In June 2017, a kick-off event took place on WVSOM’s
campus to introduce the prevention guide to the community.
In October of that year, the toolkit was presented at the
West Virginia Rural Health Conference, where neighboring
counties began expressing an interest in it. During that time, the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
a federal funding agency for substance abuse, also began
using it as a model for other areas of the state with hopes of
replicating the toolkit in the other 54 counties.
Customizing the Content
According to Estep, the greatest value of the toolkit is that
it can be modified by individual communities to include their
specific needs. Localized stories can be found in each county
where similar toolkits have been created because being able to
understand what each community needs means painting the pic-
ture of how the issue is impacting individuals at the local level.
For example, in the Greenbrier County toolkit, Patricia
Browning, D.O., a WVSOM graduate, provides the perspective
of a parent who has been impacted. Two of her daughters
died of an overdose after years of struggling with addiction.
In the story, she explains that her family’s lives were full of