Leaders from programs both local and statewide gathered Tuesday at UPMC Western Behavioral Health at Safe Harbor headquarters in Franklin to discuss their program to support women struggling with substance abuse and to focus on preventing neonatal abstinence syndrome and prenatal substance exposure.<\/p>\n
The program entered the idea stage in 2019, but\u00a0Jessianne Montie, director of clinical services for Safe Harbor, said that the COVID-19 pandemic caused them to push things to March of 2021 for their start.<\/p>\n
Since then, they have treated over 130 women in the area, with roughly 80 women currently getting outpatient care through the UPMC Magee-Women’s Specialty Services location in Franklin and another 16 through Safe Harbor.<\/p>\n
“Since we started, we’ve seen a significant reduction in babies born with NAS (neonatal abstinence syndrome),” Montie said, adding that their use of medication for women suffering from addiction that are currently pregnant has also reduced the time affected infants are spending in the hospital after birth.<\/p>\n
“That is really attributed to connecting moms with medication while they are pregnant,” explained Nurse Navigator\u00a0Samantha Hartle, who is with UPMC Magee-Women’s Pregnancy & Women’s Recovery Center.<\/p>\n
The work is supported by the state and several other organizations, including some at the county level, and Venango County Substance Use Disorder Program Director Justin Heffernan attended the meeting as well to show their support.<\/p>\n
Awareness matters<\/p>\n
Another large part of their mission is raising awareness and combatting stigma, and Hartle said they were excited to be planning several supportive events this summer for those in need and to help educate the community.<\/p>\n
Over the years the approach to combatting addiction has changed, but public opinion \u2014 and even the opinion of many other people in the medical field \u2014 has been slower to shift.<\/p>\n
“It’s not about preaching abstinence anymore; it’s about meeting them where they are,” said UPMC Safe Harbor’s\u00a0Program Manager for Addiction Medicine Services\u00a0Kayla Shade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Stigma within the healthcare system is also very real,” added Hartle, who said that they had seen a lot of progress since they started in 2021. Previously, she said emergency rooms and other practitioners were hesitant to connect patients with their services, but that has drastically improved over the last few years.<\/p>\n
Another stigma that professionals are working to change is the attitudes toward medication for combatting addiction and withdrawal. “Culturally, we’re still experiencing a lot of ‘Oh, just go through the 12-step program,'” explained Keirstin Gregory, a behavioral health therapist associate at UPMC Safe Harbor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Going forward, Gregory said they want to both decrease public stigmatization towards, as well as increase access to medications, which she said made a huge difference in NAS cases.<\/p>\n
Helping behind bars<\/p>\n
The program expanded their coverage to speaking with women in the Venango County Jail starting in 2024, and recently restarted this year after a temporary pause caused by the turnover in the jail’s leadership. According to a handout provided by UPMC, they began offering two hours of programming at the jail each week \u2014 one hour spent in each of the women’s blocks.<\/p>\n
Even if they aren’t pregnant, the presenters said providing the women in the jail with information is important so they can help themselves or others in the future.<\/p>\n
The group does more than just provide counseling and information, however. “We’re also doing our best to help navigate their needs beyond us,” Gregory said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There is an opportunity to collaborate,” explained Montie. While addiction can be a struggle when inmates are trying to return to society, finding housing, employment, food, or transportation can all also be barriers. Montie said that the women they work with in the jail frequently reach out to them after their release and ask where they can find other kinds of resources.<\/p>\n
“They feel safe calling us to point them in the right direction,” Hartle said.<\/p>\n
Effort at the state level<\/p>\n
Venango County was the first stop for the Shapiro Administration’s Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs’\u00a0stakeholder engagement tour this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We wanted to come here to see all the wonderful work that is going on,” DDAP\u00a0Programs\u00a0Secretary Dr. Latika Davis-Jones said.<\/p>\n
In the broader scope of substance abuse and addiction, medical professionals in the meeting said that they have also seen a reduction in overdose deaths in recent years, which Davis-Jones noted was being observed across the state as a whole.<\/p>\n
“Things don’t happen in a vacuum though,” Davis-Jones noted, adding that the efforts in education and awareness, as well as easier access to test kits and naloxone have likely played a part as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Shapiro Administration understands that substance use disorder is a family disease, impacting new mothers, pregnant and postpartum women, and their children as well as their entire families,\u201d Davis-Jones said in a press release.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest things the DDAP provides to communities throughout the state is free naloxone and test strips to promote safety among at-risk populations. As fentanyl becomes more and more prevalent in other drugs, Davis-Jones said that work, and the work at the local level, has become all the more essential.<\/p>\n
Davis-Jones also encouraged anyone struggling with substance abuse problems to contact the state’s “Get Help Now” hotline at 800-662-4357.<\/p>\n
“As one of only six licensed treatment facilities in Venango County, UPMC Western Behavioral Health at Safe Harbor is exactly the kind of provider we need more of, especially in rural parts of the Commonwealth where we see maternal health care deserts and other barriers to care indicative of underserved areas,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Thank you for all your hard work,” Davis-Jones said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leaders from programs both local and statewide gathered Tuesday at UPMC Western Behavioral Health at Safe Harbor headquarters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,35716],"class_list":["post-178731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-head1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}