As the Director of Great Rivers Regional System for Addiction Care within the Marshall Health Division of Addiction Sciences, she has built infrastructure and strengthened collaborations in the communities and neighborhoods hit hardest by the opioid epidemic in West Virginia. These include Cabell, Jackson Kanawha and Putnam counties. The components of the system that she coordinates include public health harm reduction programs offering syringe exchange with wrap around services, community-based ‘quick response teams” (QRTs) to visit individuals following overdose events, hospital programs to identify and link individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) to treatment from the acute care setting, a community-based hub for comprehensive treatment and referral services, naloxone education and distribution, an enhanced capacity and infrastructure to effectively drive community engagement, prevention and education and a mechanism to coordinate all of these components as a true “System for Addiction Care”.
