Faith based leaders from Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming Counties were in attendance at the first Opioid Epidemic Workshop held in Batavia at the City Church Generation Center on Center street Tuesday.
Guest speaker Dr. Richard Blondell, MD, who is the Vice Chair of Addiction Medicine and a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at UB Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, spoke to the faith community about getting educated about the disease from a scientific perspective.
“Try to think about treatment options from a scientific perspective,” says Dr. Blondell.
“What we want is facts, truth and evidence not opinions and antidotal experience or just beliefs.”
Blondell stressed preventative measures before a person could possibly become addicted, explaining 5 key elements that can cause an addiction.
“In order to deal with this, we have to look at these 5 key elements to reverse this. It took us 20-30 years to dig us into this hole. It’s going to take 30 years to climb out. There is no quick fix.”
The Genesee-Orleans-Wyoming Task Force is currently made up of 350 members across the tri-county region.
Project coordinator Allison Parry-Gurak says the Task Force is made up of six different work groups such as community education, access to care, data, family and loved ones group, law enforcement group and healthcare providers.
Today’s workshop was presented to help faith based leaders learn about the epidemic since many people may turn to their faith leaders during an addiction. Narcan training was also provided during the workshop.
The workshop was made possible through a grant provided by the Greater Rochester Health Foundation, with support from the Genesee-Orleans-Wyoming Opioid Task Force, Orleans United DFC Coalition, Medina Area Association of Churches, Northgate Free Methodist Church and City Church.