By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Applications are being accepted to receive funds from the city of St. Joseph and Buchanan County through the Opioid Settlement funds.
The funds are a result of lawsuits that have been settled, with money coming into communities affected by the opioid epidemic.
St. Joseph Assistant Health Director Kendra Bundy says the things they’ll be looking to put the funds towards involve treatment, prevention, and education towards opioid use disorder
“So, we actually have identified also funding objectives, so it’s going to be things like filling substance use prevention, treatment, and recovery gaps in our community,” Bundy tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “We want to support progressive, sustainable resources that will prevent substance use disorder, support existing local use and treatment recovery services.”
Bundy says while there are gaps in these areas, there are strategies about how to help fill those with these funds
“We’re looking at enhancing education, maybe targeting earlier age groups to get the messaging out there about substance use disorder or engaging social service agencies so that when a person is struggling and they don’t know where to turn, we can provide an enhanced resource list,” Bundy explains.
Annually, $157,000 is distributed combined between the city and county. Bundy says the education piece the money will go towards is in early education.
Bundy says the epidemic has seemed to target younger age groups, and says if you can get in the schools or educate teachers, that might be a way to help
“I think once you start having that messaging earlier, it carries on throughout life like this is not the path you want to go down and there’s a lot of consequences that come with that,” Bundy says. “And we’re just going to start looking at earlier age groups because maybe by the time you’re in high school it’s not as effective to message to that group, we don’t want to miss that group, but we also need to look at where problems start earlier and earlier.”
The deadline for applications is March 15th.
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.
