A recent report from the Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services found that local drug and alcohol overdose death rates have been at least three times higher than the state average throughout the past five years.
These findings did not come as a surprise to the department’s Mental Health Branch Senior Program Manager Sue Grenfell, which she said is unfortunate.
Rather than focusing on drug treatment services alone, local health officials and other community partners are now placing a deeper focus on the underlying roots that lead to drug and alcohol abuse — primarily trauma.
“Certainly we’re doing the best we can to provide trauma treatment as a part of what we’re doing in our treatment programs, but that’s a whole different approach than what’s traditionally been done of going to group treatment and seeing a substance abuse counselor,” Grenfell said. “In an ideal world, all those people that are coming into drug treatment would have access to a mental health clinician, to case management services, to a (primary care physician) that’s integrated into the whole picture.”
To continue reading this article by Will Houston, go to: http://www.times-standard.com/...dose-rates-worsening
Comments (0)