This section of the toolkit was developed using information gathered through interviews and focus groups with public safety stakeholders, who represent law enforcement, including local police and the sheriff’s department.
Below you will find the promising overdose response strategies identified by public safety stakeholders in Kent County. Each promising strategy is numbered, along with stakeholder identified barriers to accomplishing the proposed strategy, and how the System for Opioid Overdose Surveillance (SOS) may assist stakeholders’ ability to accomplish each promising strategy.
Promising Strategy 1: Community Outreach
Public safety stakeholders identify the importance of being able to strategically patrol through the Grand Rapids-based Homeless Outreach Team. Many public safety stakeholders recognize the limited reactive role they often play in overdose but feel that increased access to data may create new possibilities to support the community’s homeless population.
The Homeless Outreach Team consists of law enforcement, emergency responders, and specialists focused on linking vulnerable populations to any resources they may need, such as mental health support or substance use disorder treatment. The team’s co-response model in which police officers are paired with social workers, peer recovery coaches, and/or peer support specialists when conducting outreach to homeless populations may serve as a model for other public safety stakeholders interested in integrating this co-response model into their police departments. Public safety stakeholders feel that data on opioid overdoses in the community would be particularly valuable to groups with a co-response model, such as the Homeless Outreach Team, when locating populations in need of resources and in responding to overdoses in a timely manner.
Barriers to Community Outreach
- Public safety plays a largely reactive role in opioid overdose response: The largest barrier to community outreach response identified by public safety stakeholders remains the reactive nature of their role in overdose response. Stakeholders feel that their ability to engage in overdose prevention is greatly limited by the role they play in responding primarily to 911 emergency calls and arriving on-scene after someone has overdosed.
- Fragmented data sources prohibit efficient connection between homeless populations and the resources they need: Like other public safety teams, the Grand Rapids-based Homeless Outreach Team also plays a more reactive role in overdose response. However, the team canvases areas of the city with large homeless populations, actively working to connect them with support and resources. Currently, the outreach team works with fragmented data sources and word-of-mouth to locate and assist homeless populations in Grand Rapids, identifying the need for access to more centralized and reliable data.
Near Real-Time Data Impact on Community Outreach
Identify locations in greatest need of connection to community resources: Through the acquisition of near real-time suspected overdose data, the Homeless Outreach Team can identify areas in urgent need of greater overdose response and prevention with the goal of spreading awareness of available resources and connecting the population with available services.
Promising Strategy 2: Advocate for Overdose Prevention Resources
Public safety stakeholders in Kent County recognize the importance of advocating for additional funding to be allocated to their work in overdose response and prevention. By advocating for and with their community, public safety can engage in overdose response and prevention efforts in a positive, proactive way. Public safety stakeholders hope that support of overdose prevention expansion will not only assist public safety in responding to overdose but will help to generate a larger conversation within community leadership and across the county regarding the enormity of the issue of opioid overdose.
“You know, drug overdose, opioid dependency, crosses all bounds of society, but until it really affects you personally, I think, does one really understand the extent of the problem, but providing this information and letting people know, hey, this truly is an issue, and we’re dealing with it as a public health crisis and not necessarily as a criminal justice issue, I think that information and that education is not only eye-opening, but hopefully will create additional policy that will help us address this issue.”
Public Safety Stakeholder
Barriers to Advocating for Overdose Prevention Resources
Distrust of public safety prevents effective engagement with the community: Public safety expressed that distrust of law enforcement’s involvement in overdose response can diminish the impact they have in the community. The resulting community distrust may limit law enforcement’s ability to engage in advocacy work around overdose prevention. This makes it even more important that public safety entities engage in advocacy efforts, showing the public that they are ready and willing to be effective partners in overdose response and prevention.
Near Real-Time Data Impact on Advocating for Overdose Prevention Resources
- Advocate for community needs using near real-time data: Public safety stakeholders feel that public safety leadership and local officials would benefit from engaging with the SOS data, to promote awareness of the burden of overdose on the region and provide leadership with evidence for the need of support for overdose prevention work. Public safety stakeholders hope to use near real-time overdose data provided by SOS to advocate directly for community needs (e.g., expansion of opioid overdose prevention programs) through data-supported proposals or presentations and communication with city and county leadership.
- Collaborate with community organizations to promote positive relationships between public safety and community members: Stakeholders will also engage with SOS to collaborate with other community organizations working to prevent opioid overdose. This will be done with the goal of gaining a better understanding of community needs and the challenges other organizations are faced with in responding to overdose. Collaboration between public safety and other overdose prevention entities will also be done with the intention of finding new ways public safety can improve their relationship with the greater community, regardless of successful advocacy efforts or not.
“I think the more of that information gets out there… it’s kind of pulling the veil away from the problem oftentimes, and I think this data and this information, the way it’s presented, will potentially provide more insight to city leadership, community members, the general public at hand to the extent of the problem.”
Public Safety Stakeholder