Opioid Settlement Advisory - August 18, 2026

Good evening everybody. Welcome to the Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Committee meeting on Tuesday, August 18th. We are meeting in the Town Hall Select Board Room and I would like to call the meeting to order and please start by doing the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation

under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, so on the agenda this evening, we were expecting a guest speaker at six o'clock. She has not arrived yet, so we're going to go over And hopefully she will come so we can hear from Rachel DiZello, I spelled her name incorrectly, Town of Dartmouth Substance Use Program Coordinator. She was coming to describe her

role and report on her attendance at the National Opioid Settlement Fund Conference. The presentation she was going to do for us is the same presentation she did for the Town of Dartmouth. um so it is on a powerpoint um so anyway we will skip that and let's go right to approval of the june 16th 2026 minutes are there any questions or thought thoughts about those minutes second

okay all in favor aye aye okay so so approved all right now we're moved to um member updates and reports and I have first on the agenda is Dr Roy who's going to talk to us about the work that she's been doing on the RFP RFA process here So I have a draft RFA as well as a memo, a draft memo to go to council just to look at

it from a legality perspective. I did share this with you, right, Donna? - Yeah, I didn't wanna share it until we cross. - I mean, I have copies so I can hand out a copy to everybody. Because I use the help of AI, We kind of took into consideration some of the feedback that you've already gotten in terms of how the RFA is written. And

specifically, there's some choices in here. If you look at anything in yellow in the RFA, There's just a couple of notes that's like decisions for us internally. One of them being what the rubric would be given what kind of scoring process. So I'm on page eight right now where it says review and selection process. We have three, two pages. Yep. Oh, wait a minute. It's separated.

Okay. Here's one that's full. Yeah. Okay. This one. What is the memo?

Okay, got it. There's the memo. There's the memo. And then there's the RFA. Got it. Have they got one now? Yes. Okay. Okay. I mean, I'm not a lawyer, so either way... This would need to get looked at, I assume, by us first, if this made sense. The other thing I was learning while I was doing this is the difference between when you would want a RFA versus an RFP. Craig, you

may know more of this. And this was more, it seems like the work that we're trying to do in this case is more RFA-like versus RFP-like because it's for...

a public good versus like a service that the town needs that the town was going to pay for anywhere. So that 30 B thing doesn't necessarily apply in the RFA. Um, so there's, you know, some procurement stuff built into that, that I think, uh, you know, I would just need somebody with a legal ID to, to look at that. That's besides reading through this god awful thing, that's kind of where

it is. So lots of help from AI on this one with lots of back and forth trying to understand the difference between RFA versus RFP, what makes sense for us. Okay. If you want to take a look at it, I also can send it out electronically now that we've discussed it publicly. and if we think it's if there's no feedback or once we're ready we can send it i can send it

to chris retaliate and see what he thinks okay yeah even if we give ourselves time to to do another whack at it next month but sure have chris take a look at it too and he can decide whether within within his realm experience whether uh it's something he would tweak and then let go or whether um he would feel town council needed to be involved as well yeah i i said this

on another committee when you invite town council it slows the process way down you know we're now on a waiting list or you know it's just so if we could if if we have to i'm not going to say avoid town council but if we if it's if it's standardized enough and fits into the little you know pegs and stuff like that and all the checklists you normally do on these things

then we you know maybe Chris could just give us the green light and we can go with it yeah I mean we just need the legality I didn't mean it doesn't need to go to the select board necessarily it's just the even council yeah okay but yeah and Chris knows these laws pretty well so I think he's he's well-versed on this stuff so Um, so I've also been talking to Chris about

about this and he said, you know, to meet with him at any time. But, um, should we as a committee review this and then have Dr Roy send it to him for review before our next meeting? Um, do we want to vote on that now to have it just sent through? Or do you guys want to look at it first? We get to look at it 1st, maybe, maybe even in the

sense, not to agree on every word or something, you know, like, that level, but at least, you know, this is this is going where we want it to go.

You know, like, I don't know if it matters for his review if we have to pick the rubric. That could be something we can back to which rubric. You know, he might be more checking. Is there. All right. I mean, and maybe that's the thing. Are there certain things that we want to just make sure we're on the same page about before sending it without getting totally into the weeds? So my

preference is if everyone is okay with it going to Chris for me to review with him and then bring it back to the committee because it's going to hold it up. Okay, yeah. Right? Maybe just saying it's a draft the committee hasn't reviewed fully. Yeah. As long as he knows it's sort of... subject to some change by committee yeah and it's gonna keep it's not gonna approve like i need because of

how he processes everything it might be helpful to start processing it with him now and then i can communicate with the committee he says you know we need to do this this is this this and then in our meeting in september then we can say okay okay we want to put this forward but i think the way things have run so can i have a motion from the committee to um present

this to uh the town administrator and work with him and um and then we'll approve it later or we'll i i move that we send it out of committee to for review okay Okay. And include Chris Vitale?

Now. Okay. Yes. We're in agreement. All right. Do I have a second? Second. Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Beautiful. Okay.

Since we're in... we move to member updates and reports and our speaker is working on getting on so can i ask um is there anything else that you have to report to us anything about the survey uh well yeah i can report on something we worked on exactly the survey but um So, I had my experience with Dr Roy's help looking at the spreadsheet I made that on each tab has

a different source of data, the survey, the focus groups, the expert input from our meetings. And I had mostly coded it so, but thank you for your help and thank you to Claude who. who finished coding, summarized it, and made a presentation. So I have to review that now. You have to give it the human eye before sharing it, but we'll have that for the next meeting and send in advance. And

that can continue to shape, you know, so it puts everything together and puts it in context so we can see all the input that we've gotten from different sources, and that can help refine our process. So... So thank you to you and Claude.

And as I said, I will be able to share something that I'm going to have to share credit with my first AI experience. Yeah, so you're supposed to put it somewhere. Yeah. So now I have to donate to an organization that does AI regulation and environmental mitigation. Yeah. Anthropic supposed to be of all of them, right? It's supposed to be somewhat responsible, which is why I use Claude. That's great. Now that

was the data piece, the survey to the. So the survey we talked about, I mean, the survey is ready to go. It's just, this is not the best time for me to send something to parents. It's not, it's going to get lost in the shuffle. So let's let them get the, you know, the kids back into school and then we'll send something out when things quiet down. Okay. are there any questions

about that from anybody in the committee okay i'd like to hear now from police chief dunn about what's happened in the police department and what's happening with any grants or so yes i'm glad you brought that up detective donovan has been in contact with nikki fontaine the representative for the floor of addiction support team and treatment team

fast we did sign a letter of commitment in july of fy26 for first responders under the comprehensive addiction and recovery act of the cara grant The grant allows Detective Michelle Donovan, Field Training Officer Michael Chica to conduct post overdose follow up and outreach services with the FAST team clinician through child and family services, community behavior health center

team. The grant also supports training related to fentanyl, carfentanil and other dangerous drugs as well as reducing stigma around substance abuse and mental health disorders. The FAST team will provide Westport Police Department resources relating to administering and distributing opioid overdose reversal medications including Narcan. Nikki Fontaine has requested a separate grant funding for outreach visits for

Detective Donovan and Officer Chica, as well as for training and attendance. So hopefully you'll hear very soon about if we get funds related for their reimbursement for overtime. Are you applying for that or is she applying? She's applying for that. Okay.

and then uh we're hoping the start dates for the algorithm now the start dates for the visits of tbd but hopefully with the next couple weeks once we get the separate grant is awarded cara grant funding will begin september 30th so right now we're in a little bit of a holding pattern but hopefully in the next few weeks we'll get up and running again with the fast team for outreach i know

just the numbers right now we've had 55 total incidences both that's combined mental health and overdose And we've had 50 follow up visits between January 1 of this year and July 2nd. And we've had 30 successful contacts, meaning when our officers go out, Detective Donovan and Officer Chikwa, when they go out with the clinicians, they've had success

in 30 of those 50 with either the person who suffered an overdose or mental health or their family. so you've been doing it past the grant because july 2nd yeah so we've been paying our own overtime we've been reimbursing and has there been a clinician involved in these yes it's still the clinician that we use through easton okay but once we're going to stop that and unfortunately in the transition to fast

yeah because that grant has technically expired right that's what i thought so it's great you've been able to Yeah, no, I think it's very important. Like, we will find a way to pay the overtime for the officers to go out and they go out every other week for a period of 4 hours. The clinician from fast. Yes.

Do we do we know is there going to be a designated clinician or is it going to be somebody who is different every time? I'll ask for you because part of. helping people with mental health issues and substance use overdose issues is the trust issue. Is building trust in relationship with the person that's coming and following up with them. If FAST is going

to be sending different people every time, that can hamper that trust from developing. I can understand that and I'll speak to Detective Donovan about getting an answer for us for that. Okay. So another question I have is we had fast and then we didn't have fast. Yes. So what's happened that now we can have their services come to us. I believe the funding was now then trickled down from the federal government.

From what I understand, I think there was a pause in funding for this type of outreach and I believe it's now back in the process. That's my understanding.

Okay, that's great. It is great. It's exciting. It's great that we can work together with far over the boarding city to us. You know, so it's great working together with them and having a coordinated approach. Are there any other questions for Chief Don about About the working collaboratively with fast and that as far as the coast up once fast is in the social worker that you've been working with will

be part of the course of grant is user has expired. Right? And we can still use their statistical analysis and that's pretty much all we can use for them that that's I think till January of June of next year. Meaning we can log it in and see how many instances we've had. We can go by the month, and then we can see if there's another department where they had a Westport resident

who they had an incident with. We'll get an alert from that department. Are there any other questions for Chief Dunn about the end? This is for post-overdose only, correct?

Yes. Right? And mental health. And mental health, yes. But it's only four hours a week every other week. Or again, as needed as I would not say no. If detective Donovan came to me and says, I need to go tonight. To provide mental health or services to somebody, I would never say no to that. It's just that's the kind of designated time they have with the clinician. Right and so the funding

for that is going to come from the fast funding. Yes, from the camera. None of it will come from the police department or. Right now, we are supplementing it some with our overtime budget. But again, we can, we'll figure that out. I'm not worried about it. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, that's good news. Good news. Do we have any reports of any... Yes. No, there are... Fatalities? I can't speak enough about

Detective Donovan and Officer Chicker. They're great people. Obviously, they're great people. It's their role and they truly enjoy it. And they truly enjoy helping out and doing it. And I... Did she share with you any of the statistics for this? I didn't I don't know that I brought them with me for how many were there any deaths that we've had and we've had no deaths. That's wonderful. Yes. Okay. Any other

questions for chief done? All right. So I want to forego my update because I would love to have our guest speaker come up. This is welcome Rachel Zillio. I spelt your name incorrectly on my minutes or not my minutes, my Agenda, thank you. Rachel is the town of Dartmouth substance use program coordinator, and she's here to describe her role and report on her attendance at the National Opioid Settlement Fund

Conference, which was in Colorado. That was in Denver in June. Yeah. So I want to apologize for my tardiness. First and foremost, I'm so sorry. I think I ended up at the town hall annex down the road. Got a little confused. So I am so sorry about that. But I want to thank Donna for inviting me to come speak with you guys. We've worked on a couple of projects and it's been

really nice to have some inter community collaboration going on around the funds. So yeah, I went to the National Opioid Settlement Conference in June in Denver, Colorado.

see and meet representatives from different areas in the country doing all different kinds of work and I think for me it was a little reassuring that Massachusetts is definitely we got it together a little bit so we're definitely in the right direction which is always really nice I also prepared to talk about a couple projects that I've been working on just in my role if you guys kind of we're looking

to see what you know other communities are doing with their funds um I believe that kind of sharing that information is really valuable to help give inspiration to what could be done um in surrounding communities so if you'd like to hear more about that stuff I had that prepared as well So the goals of the conference, other than kind of what I've already described, basically they wanted to get all of those

people that I mentioned together to catalyze sustained action beyond the event, to promote equity-centered, evidence-informed strategies, to elevate lived experience and practice and policy, advanced accountability, evaluation and sustainability, foster multi-sector collaboration across communities and systems. And you'll see on the left is my curated conference agenda. They had, I mean, so many really,

I think, beneficial topics throughout the entire week. So this is just a snippet of what my agenda looked like. So definitely tried to focus on settlement funds at the local level, pursuing equity impact, sorry, pursuing equity equity and impact in the overdose epidemic. Sorry. I tried to focus on a couple groups that revolved around research, innovation, and evaluation. Dartmouth is getting ready to do our

community needs assessment for the entire town. So I thought that that would be a really good focus just for us. State and local collaboration. And then I went to a couple different sessions that revolved around grassroots organizations, trickling the funding down as administrators, how can we best support our community? And then, you know, as communities, I

think Westport might kind of share the sentiment, but with a limited, you know, a limited budget in comparison to maybe some of our surrounding communities, how can we make the most lasting investments with the funds? So that was my own personal agenda for the conference. And for my key takeaways, I was really able to narrow it down

into three categories. SO STRATEGIC STEWARDSHIP OF THE FUNDS SUPPORTING THE FULL CONTINUUM OF CARE, PREVENTION, EARLY INTERVENTION AND RECOVERY AND THEN FINALLY THAT DATUM EVALUATION AND SYSTEMS ALIGNMENT PIECE OF THE PUZZLE. SO UNDER EACH OF THOSE TOPICS YOU'LL SEE JUST A LIST OF REALLY BRIEF TAKEAWAYS THAT I WAS ABLE TO -- THAT REALLY RESONATED WITH ME

AS I WENT THROUGH THE CONFERENCE. I THINK A REALLY BIG discussion amongst all of the groups and no matter what the background of the you know participants were that we really want to make sure that at the national level we are getting the funds back into the pockets of the people that have been most closely impacted

whether they've experienced overdose themselves if they're a family member of someone that's experienced fatal overdose THE CHILDREN OF INDIVIDUALS WITH LIVED AND LIVING EXPERIENCE. THE NETWORKS GO ON.

WE COULD LIST SO MANY DIFFERENT RELATIONS. BUT MAKING SURE THAT THAT'S THE PRIORITY NOT ONLY IN OUR RESEARCH AND OUR NEEDS ASSESSMENT PHASES, BUT ALSO AT THE TABLE, PART OF THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS AS WELL. So and that's obviously going to look different to every community whether that's you know one person at the table or you know maybe a subcommittee. It kind of has levels depending on that kind of community

trust and interest in the projects right. And I think also a big piece of that was making sure those people are compensated for their time. A lot of them are volunteers but they have that firsthand experience with dealing with the systems that you know coming from I can only speak for myself but coming from more of that textbook or you know, at one point looking at it, you know, from a clinical

lens, it can be a little bit different than actually navigating those systems. So how do we come together and make sure everyone's on the same page to be able to then work together to get the results that we want to see? So that was like a huge piece of the puzzle for me in that area there. Again, around just like limiting, not limiting, sorry, limited funding opportunities. I mean, I think the

biggest thing for me was How do we approach, you know, Dartmouth at just over $2 million? I think Westport around just over $1 million, is it? Right. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. So it can be kind of hard to prioritize and make it feel like we're hitting all the different areas that the state subdivision wants us to hit. SO THEIR SUGGESTION WAS DOING TIERED GRANT OPPORTUNITIES, HAVING DIFFERENT INVESTMENT LEVELS AT THE $1,000, $5,000 PRICE POINT, THEN YOU MOVE UP TO MAYBE YOUR SECOND TIER, WHICH IS 10,000 to 50,000, what did those investments look like? And then moving it up to maybe

that $100,000 or that bigger kind of opportunity and how often do we want to have those opportunities brought to the table? Is it annually? Is it biannually? So just like things to think about on how to make those investments, how to prioritize them.

But again, with limited funds, you only hit so many pieces of the puzzle. And I think that's a challenge we're all kind of facing. um with the limited funds um and I think for the first topic the last one I really want to hone in on is actively bringing those funding opportunities to our community-based and grassroots organizations

something that I hadn't considered just because you know as someone who has become accustomed to using you know the combine system or going through a formal procurement or knowing just like where to look for grants right when we're in public service Not every grassroots organization has someone dedicated or with the background, right, to do the grant writing

that has that maybe formal education. And that's okay. We just need to make sure that any opportunities we put out are in a language that's accessible, understandable, and what does that process of getting a response from them look like? not all the organizations may know to go to COMMBUYS or whatever that system is that we're publishing our

opportunities, making sure we're doing that face-to-face, in-person, on-the-ground outreach saying, "Hey, I want to learn more about the work you're doing." If it's in line with it, we're putting out a grant opportunity in the next few months. Think about if it's something that you'd be interested in and making sure that the language in those opportunities are accessible

and it might be worded or published, I think in a more maybe digestible is the word way than someone without formal grant writing experience. So making sure everyone is able to kind of speak the same language, so to say, right. And know where to find the opportunity because you have so many great local organizations in the area that I'm sure are struggling with funding right now. It's hard for everyone, you know,

limited funds everywhere. So making sure that they know what's out there and they're able to get a piece of the pie as well. So when we talk about creating that recovery ecosystem, it's a lot of the things that I don't want to like harp on it that we hear a lot of the time when it comes to best practices in the recovery space or the treatment space. We just want to make

sure everything we do is person centered and strength based really striving for community-driven solutions, helping people feel immersed in their community and knowing what the resources are, and building systems that intertwine and communicate with each other. I find a lot, you know, we talk about like work is almost being done in silos and we really want to

do our best as the administrators of the funds and kind of the leaders that are bringing these systems together to break down those walls and um making sure that the communication stays open um so that we can create that one system instead of a very siloed system just easier for everyone to navigate um School based clinical services

was also a recommended best practice if again if budget allows bringing supports directly into the schools was something that they focused on especially for communities with limited funds that was one of their things that was recommended as like a priority. It goes back to the prevention efforts and there's so many opportunities out there to partner with clinical

based services and I can get into that a little bit later but Again, more just on the tiered intervention models, especially in the schools, making sure we're targeting all of the students when it comes to social emotional learning. But then, you know, if we're noticing students getting stuck in the cycle of maybe poor behavior choices or, you

know, vaping, other substance use, whatever the case is, mental health concerns, making sure that we're having age-appropriate conversations, but that are also targeting the issue at hand to get to the root cause. and having that be kind of a tiered approach with a more kind of like accessible to everyone at the first tier, maybe a little more

targeted. for maybe those kids that are stuck in that cycle and then at the top it's like who are we seeing recurrent like consistently. I hope this is nothing new but just so kind of everyone has that idea of what they mean by creating that full continuum and when it comes to prevention especially I know that's one of Dartmouth's main focuses or has been so far with the funds so just some

takeaways there. And then on the data side, again, this is more kind of at the state level, but I think it opens up the opportunity for a really good conversation. There were calls for stronger alignment across state, regional, and local systems. So what does our regional connection look like? What do our local connections look like? And

then what does the collaboration or support look like from the state? I know myself, I've leaned on MOSAIC's technical assistance uh center for quite a number of things that I've had questions with or even just trying to navigate how to get started when I first um started in July uh last July um and they've been nothing but helpful and they are I mean the people that are in the know about the

you know state subdivision agreement and all of the requirements on the opioid uh settlement funds like the legal side of things so definitely I can always say a great resource very easy um to access And then other things to consider transparency and accountability are obviously like at the top of the list. One of the quotes that stands out to me and I might have to paraphrase, but when

there is no clear system, the funds may follow relationships and not the need. So I think that making sure that we are remaining transparent and reporting making sure that when it comes to grant writing and funding opportunities, making sure that there is a clear system laid out that's consistent across all opportunities. That's kind of the takeaway there. And then finally, just considering

measurable outcomes and outcome-driven evaluation frameworks that demonstrate a meaningful impact of settlement-funded programs. Just making sure ongoing program management is also prioritized as well.

That was a lot on the conference side of things. So I don't know if you want me to take a pause there for any questions or if you want me to go through maybe some of the things we've been doing in Dartmouth. Up to you guys. Was there a workshop regarding how towns can bridge the lack of administrative support for dispersing funds? I think that, I don't

want to say there was a specific workshop workshop for that.

I think that was just like a maybe a conversation throughout the whole like throughout the administrative themed I'll say workshops. I'm trying to recall if that came up. I'm not sure I don't know that I have anything off the top of my head. I can absolutely look into that. I have a notebook full of notes that I'm happy to summarize. I tried to give

you guys the highlights here, but anything you guys had specific questions on when it came to the agenda, I'll get you all the information to Donna and she can share all the particulars. I have a ton of notes, so I didn't think you guys wanted to see all my chicken scratch. I tried to save you some time, but I can get you that. Can you talk a little bit about your

role? Yeah. How you were hired? Yeah. All of that. Yeah, absolutely. So prior to me being onboarded, I started July 1st of last year. So that's what, 2025? Which is crazy to say it's already been a year.

But prior to me getting onboarded, this role was really the vision of the chair of our select board. Heidi Silva Brooks, she was kind of the champion for the opioid settlement funds and getting the Dartmouth advocates for addiction recovery and treatment off the ground. So that was kind of like her her project, I guess, her baby, if you will. So she kind of started the

committee. DART is our kind of like advisory board. And it was co-chaired by our youth advocate. So they were kind of the two that that really started all the efforts around the settlement funds in Dartmouth. But it got to the point where they kind of realized that this is a 40 hour a week job and we all have our own plates to kind of manage anyway. So they started talking about

what this role would look like. And obviously I came in and there was a job description and it was leading the DART committee and there were things outlined, but I think I've been really lucky with kind of like creating the position as I go since there was there was no me before so it's been really nice to kind of have the freedom to make the connections in the community and interdepartmentally and

kind of see how I can fit in to best support other key players in the town um so yeah I lead the dart committee um I am assigned to do any and all things really opioid settlement funds where it comes to reporting, even like finding other grant opportunities to extend the life of the funds. That's been like a really big message where, you know, I think even after 2038

and when these funds are gone, it's still a priority to find continued avenues of funding to continue the projects that we start or to even, drive new work forward and new projects forward. So I think if I missed anything, Donna, let me know part of your question. But yeah, it's been really, I think it's been really nice to kind of also be given that guidance and kind of know what

you're signing up for in the beginning, but also kind of having that freedom to kind of make it in the vision of kind of like where the work is going as well. So it's been really good in that way. I have two questions.

What fraction of your settlement funds have you spent in Dartmouth so far or committed?

That's a really good question. I want to say, so I can give you some like figures off the top of my head. We committed $100,000 to our elementary after school programs. We had none prior to the opioid settlement funds. And in the actually great segue in the name of prevention, we really want students from from our youngest residents to our oldest to feel the impact of the funds. So we really

wanted to create a space that was pro-social in the schools. to give students a place to explore hobbies and interests, make new friends, be in a trusted environment. So I have some stats for that on the board. So we've done $100,000 there. We spent about, I think, $12,000 in the first six-week installment of the program.

So if spending's consistent, we should have another three years of that just with that initial investment. We spent $40,000 on vape detectors and are now working to, now that we have the identification piece of it, now we're really working hard to get that like intervention piece of it worked in as well. So we've got some like really cost efficient, low to no cost options on the table now. We're just kind of

like working out to see what works best for the schools. So my second, so it's related to my second question. Yeah. What have you actually spent that affects directly people, persons suffering from opioid use disorder? Yeah, so that's kind of where we want to go. We want to go with, okay, we want to do our needs assessment. I've kind of like tried

to slow down our decision making and say, you know, I'm a numbers person, I'm a data girl. So I really want our priority right now to be on getting ALL OF THE INPUT FROM THE COMMUNITY BEFORE WE MAKE ANY FURTHER LARGE INVESTMENTS. I KNOW ON THE TABLE, SO TO SPEAK, WE'VE REALLY TOSSED AROUND THE IDEA OF DOING MINI GRANT OR SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS FOR PEOPLE IN TOWN WHO MIGHT BE LOOKING FOR ASSISTANCE WITH

like funding recovery or treatment supports, transportation, childcare costs, or maybe like a legacy kind of scholarship for continuing education. So we have some ideas. We haven't got the like policies written up yet. We wanted to prioritize our needs assessment before making any other large investments. I kind of put the pause on that when I came in. I said, we need some numbers to back up all

these decisions we're making. Again, just out of transparency and out of fairness to the spirit of the funds and really prioritizing the voices of the people in town and seeing what they want out of the funds. How much are you sitting on in Dartmouth right now? We've gotten... We've gotten... over six hundred thousand dollars as of the last fiscal year um and like I said I think we've spent about um I

want to say about this is not this is a ballpark um I want to say we spent about 70 000 this year give or take um that includes your salary it does include my salary um so again that's just an approximation I'd have to get exact figures um to speak more accurately but Again, I think the biggest piece around like the funding for us right now, I've really

tried to like hammer home. We really want to get the input from the community before we make any of those bigger investments going forward. And are you hiring somebody to do that assessment? We are. And what is the cost for what you're going to be hiring? The cost varies depending on the firm. I will say Mosaic did give out, they published guidelines based on your individual municipalities overall settlement fund

award I don't know if that's how you say it but um so based on um your total amount awarded they give a range on what they suggest spending on a on a needs assessment so we we try to follow their guidelines um as best we could during the process do you have any direct contact with persons with opioid use disorder? Yeah, I mean, I try to immerse myself in the community and

do that. Do you see individuals? Is that part of your job description? Yeah, well, I mean, I don't, not in like a clinical way, no. But I mean, if someone was wondering how to navigate treatment resources or local resources, I would absolutely take the call or speak with them. Can you estimate for us how many contacts you've had since you started your... I'll be honest, it hasn't been many. I've had a

handful come through from the schools from parents and guidance counselors, maybe about five there.

Again, I think a big part of it is building the trust. I think I heard Donna talking about that earlier. I think a big part of it is I think it can be a little intimidating speaking with someone from, you know, with that town label attached to them. I think that's part of the barrier there with community engagement across the board, right? So I think for me, just prioritizing getting out in

the community, doing that outreach, but also I think, you know, a goal of mine is to get more, you know, involvement from people who have been directly impacted to help build that bridge with the people in town who might have some reservations about utilizing the services we have to offer and you know even if it's just you know I I'm happy to you know I have naloxone in my office come see

me for naloxone type of thing or if you have questions about where to go for treatment or XYZ I might not have the answer but I can definitely put you in touch with someone that does so I think just letting people know that you know it's as confidential as it can be and you know I'm here to help and really just support where you are at in your journey and I think

I'm still relatively new, I think, around town. Do people know that's a resource that you can provide? Is that something that's promoted or known? Is it a sort of explicit part of your job description? Are you encouraged or asked about that? Is it a priority, I guess? I would say for me it's a priority. I definitely want people to feel like they can come to me. Whether we're doing enough to advertise

it, maybe we're not. But I think that, again, you know, even doing things like the feel good fair, getting your name out there, you know, our police outreach and having them advocate and say, you know, this position exists and, you know, do you know where to go if you need XYZ service? So I think it's still definitely a part of our puzzle we're working to put together. But everywhere I go, you

know, I make sure to plug that, you know, please use me if you need me. I will, like I said, I'll do the best I can to connect you, you know, directly with someone or get you to where you need to go to get the services you're looking for. Does Dartmouth have, you know, Detective Donovan, you know, our Detective Donovan, Donovan? Do you have someone like her? Is that out post overdose?

Yes, you have that. We do. Yeah, we have two officers that do post overdose outreach and then just general outreach. Because we have the motels along Route 6, so that's a big hot spot for us to prioritize. and make sure everyone has what they need there, especially during the winter. So you coordinate with them? Yeah, I definitely support their efforts as well. We also partner with Seven Hills to help. I don't

know if you guys are, I assume you're connected? We don't, but I know. Oh, okay. I spoke to Chief Levesque. Yes. - Yes, yeah, yeah. So they've been a huge resource for us. So definitely I think getting, like again, those grassroots organizations involved and they know the people, I think the best, they've been on the ground, they're face to face. So, you know, I definitely help, help, you know, coordinate as much

as I can. But I mean, Connie at Seven Hills has been doing this forever.

So they let me know what they need when they need something. So. Does Seven Hills have an office in your town or are they mostly working with outreach staff?

New Bedford is where I think they're, yeah, and Fall River. But in Dartmouth, they're just, they're in their van doing outreach. Okay. I just have a question about the vape detectors that you purchased for the school. So if the alarm goes off that someone's vaping what happens after that so that's been part of our part of our puzzle with them right so um right now i know there's some um coordination with

the guidance team and that's when sometimes I'll get that phone call right from guidance hey do you have any supports specifically for vaping and I mean it's it's kind of it's hard for that age group to find those resources honestly I'll be really honest about that and then even just like willingness to participate right is like a whole other step right so that's why we've been working really hard since November of

last year to see what the best course of action is to get meaningful intervention in the schools and what that looks like. I know there's been talks about we're trying to partner with High Point Treatment Services. They do clinical supports embedded in the schools. And they have two different pathways for that in terms of funding. And then

we've been looking at I decide and we did incorporate Wayfinder, which is a social emotional learning curriculum. You guys have maybe explored that. Yeah, right. Great, great, great. So that was kind of what was paired with the vape detectors initially, but we're really looking to kind of like expand and For me, it's like, let's get to the

root of the issue. Let's get some clinical supports in here to really support our students and help them succeed in the classroom. Now, are you directly doing that with the school or is that Dolores's role? Because it's been a DART initiative, I've been definitely taking the lead on that. Yeah, me and Dolores partner all the time for things. So if there was ever anything, oh my gosh. Yeah, she's great. She has

all the connections. She knows everyone, like everywhere we go. So I'm like, this is great. If I ever need anything, I'm coming to you. But no, I've kind of taken the lead on that because that was a DART initiative. She has a lot on her plate as it is, so I was like, I'll take this one. But if there's ever any questions about other like youth involved stuff, we partner all the

time on any priorities that like overlap. Same with myself and Matt Dancero. We partnered to get... to help kind of facilitate getting a ride-along clinician embedded in our police department. So that's in the process as well. So how many hours will the clinician be? I don't know that that has been evened out yet. That we're kind of at the point where the police department's kind of taking over and kind of settling

all the contract stuff. So I'm a little bit more hands-off with that now since they've got it under control. But but Matt and I were able to help kind of facilitate that but um if you're interested I could definitely yeah I think we're I think the plan from what I remember um and again this is um just kind of a ballpark we were going to start off more like a few days

a week covering certain shifts um during like the hot spot or you know the the busier um hours and then build up some weekly hours yeah that's great and is that settlement fund money We were lucky enough that there was grant money available through child and family services. So that was, that's why I'm kind of a little bit more hands off with that now since they've got it all covered. But always

there to support when I, you know, when I can. Now is Dolores also a full-time employee? She is. And she's paid for by the town? She is. Yeah, she was there before Rachel. She's been around for a while. Before the funds. I met Dolores at a youth, it was the DA's office. They did a whole day of training and she spoke and I'm like, I need to know this woman. She's very

dynamic. She has a lot of energy. She has a lot of knowledge and a lot of connections. Oh yeah. And but she has worked on building those connections for a very long time and people trust her and people go to her. People will refer to her. So, so I think, you know, being having the two of you as a team is really a big feather in the cap of for Dartmouth. Yeah.

Yeah, we're a good team, I think, just from my lens.

She's a great partner to work with, yeah. Are there any other questions for Rachel about her role? I guess, as this is your first year, what were some of the bumps that you had to overcome and challenges that you had during this first year of a new role yeah in the town of Dartmouth that's a great question um ask a few now yeah no that's great um I think just starting any position that's like kind

of new and defined but undefined to an extent right is kind of you know challenging um And I think I came in working in such a niche area, having to kind of like really from the bottom up get in with all the different departments and explain kind of like the importance of the funds and the opportunity we have and kind of looking to build these collaborations, not only in-house, but in the

community. It was a new community for me to work in. So just kind of getting myself established with all the local partners. And I think to that point, really leaning into the resources in New Bedford as well, because I don't Westport might be able to relate to this, but it's kind of hard to find specific treatment options right in house in Dartmouth. So we're, you know, really reliant on those community connections.

So I think I don't want to say it was necessarily a challenge, but it definitely was you know, it was a task, right? To get in and network and, you know, build that list of resources so that we can understand, you know, even without the needs assessment piece, but like, what are the gaps? What can we look at right now and say, hey, this might need some of our attention? And where

can we send people when we get those calls? And that's something I think I still would say is a challenge is especially calls from the school. It's so hard to find age appropriate services for that age group. It is quite a challenge. - Do you have therapists live in Dartmouth who treat Substance abuse disorder. We have the bridge counseling center and we have a private Oh There are few.

Yeah, and there's a really great doctor, but she's in New Bedford. And of course, I'm forgetting her name But she has spoken at the New Bedford Opioid Task Force Dr. Hallie Alexandra With South Coast, right? She's in South Coast.

She's the main, probably, yeah, she's the map person. And she's pretty dynamic. And I've known her, I knew her working in mental health. And she referred clients, she'd call and say, can you go evaluate this person in the community and so forth. But I heard her speak and she's really dynamic. But isn't South Coast Behavioral Health physically

situated in Dartmouth? Yeah, so Dr. Alexander, I believe her office is right down the road on Route 6 from Town Hall. So we have-- her office is an option for us. We also-- I said the bridge. We have-- which a lot of people don't, I think, realize is there-- the Criminal Justice Support Center as well. So that's like a whole other-- cluster of resources specifically for

I mean in Dartmouth we have the House of Corrections so it's a really nice resource to have in town to support you know those individuals reentering you know we we do find or we believe that you know the the the corrections population is part of our you know town population and we you know have a duty to use the funds to it also should benefit them

as well um so that's been something that even like with the needs assessment coming up we've been making really clear like we want the correctional setting to be a focus of ours as well so my understanding is that Persons who are incarcerated in that correctional facility are not receiving treatment for opioid use disorder directly. Is that correct? No, there is a MAT clinic in the jail. And what goes along

with that is some type of counseling services. Can persons who are incarcerated in Dartmouth receive buprenorphine? That's a good question. I'd have to look into see if they're exclusively methadone. I don't, I was gonna say, I don't think bup is as accessible in that setting as methadone, just from my experience, but. I can't dispense methadone, for sure. There's a methadone

clinic in the jail. There is? Correctional Psychiatric Services, I believe, is in the jail.

Is the dispensary in the jail? Yeah, they dispense the medication and they provide the counseling that goes along with it. Do you know if they dispense... So you think they dispense methadone but not buprenorphine? I believe, I don't believe buprenorphine is as universal in corrections. I could be wrong, but I don't believe so. I think on the CAPE, the gel that's out there, I think they do both. Just because I used

to work for Acadia, so I have a little bit more knowledge on kind of what their operations are. In Hampshire County as well. There are some places that do, but it's not. It's not everywhere, right. And I actually don't know about...

I could be wrong. I could be totally wrong. I know for sure they do the methadone piece of it. But again, all things that we want to find in our needs assessment to see where the gaps are, what we're doing well, what we're not doing well. Any other questions? What's your timeline on your needs assessments? Great question.

So we actually haven't awarded the contract yet. We are in our like, we just finished our interview process. So we hope to make announcements before the end of next week. If a September 1 date isn't feasible, we hope to start mid September with the kickoff meeting and then subsequent work and we hope to be done within nine months, which should bring us right around the new fiscal year for next year. So

we want our strategic plan and budget to reflect the needs assessment for our next fiscal year is the goal so kind of a tight timeline but i think it's i think it's doable who sets those who who sets the budget um the dark committee um i think we still have some work to do with tightening up what our formal budget looks like And that's one of we've kind of prioritized with the

needs assessment as part of a full house kind of like clean up operation, making sure we have that data and then we have a more structured budget going forward just because I think that's something we've been lacking. So if you recommend spending $5,000 on something, are you able to spend it or you have to go to the committee and the committee approves the $5,000? Yeah, that's a good question.

I mean, I think for like in the event of the the feel-good fair, that was something we kind of again collaborated on, came together. I'm glad you finally got your check. Yes, they did. UMass got their check. There was confusion around was the check going to Dartmouth or was the check going to UMass? Finally, it was... We figured it out. Yeah. It is all good. No, but when it comes to the

more like policy and um i think programmatic uh aspects i try to take it back to the committee as much as possible with the event um with like things like community events i try to put like an ad hoc committee together anyone who wants to come help plan can come but then we just kind of do our thing so again i think there are going to be some things that we have

to tighten up and take a look at but for right now i think more of the investments that you would see like in the schools police department things like that like that we're initiating go back to the team, like those initial first time kind of like investments. And if it becomes reoccurring, obviously we just kind of like renew it as needed. But with some things like community events, it's just kind of

like, hey, we're going to plan this. Who would like to be involved? And then we go from there. So it just kind of depends on what the activity or the program is. does that kind of answer that and and i just wanted to clarify that because the way we are as an advisory committee is that we um don't really have full access to funds we had five i had to request five

thousand dollars to use for administrative costs yeah and so the thousand dollars to um help support and collaborate on the feel-good figure I came from that I have not requested any other funds, but anything we do it has to go through the select board and has to get right and all of that so I just wondered if you oh that was one of the things that was holding you up or gotcha

stability gotcha I can clarify on that as well um so I know and this was again prior to me coming on board I think it was actually the springtown meeting before I arrived um The DART committee had gone to the select board at town meeting to request X amount of dollars to be utilized for projects related to the opioid settlement funds and the SSA. So we kind of had

that blanket like, here you can have X amount of dollars to use on your projects. And then we as a team decide kind of like where we want the funds to go. But we have kind of that pot of money available in the meantime. So we don't have to go to every town meeting, you know, and God forbid we run out mid, you know, like cycle, you know, so we kind of

tried to like backload a little bit. So we'd have a little little cushion. So Who supervises you? The town administrator. Is there any input from the select board or any, it's just through the town administrator? I mean, our select board chair is involved on the DART committee. But other than that, I'm really guided by Cody. I report directly to him and work with him on... you know other

decision making and just day-to-day stuff so um but then I'll report out you'll see you know this uh presentation was for the select board so periodically I'll go just report on um projects that we've been doing with the funds get their feedback usually it's good which is great for me uh makes my job easy um and then we just keep on rolling any other questions Not a question, but just to

go back to the jails, all there are, I think, three forms of MAT available, but it's only to residents who are leaving within 120 days. Gotcha. On departure, they have the highest risk of overdose. Gotcha. And they leave with a prescription as well, but it includes buprenorphine. Oh, perfect. Gotcha. She's my super sleuth. She goes in and we ask the question and she's got the answer. Love it. All right,

there's no other questions for Rachel. Rachel, would you be willing to share that PowerPoint with me? And at some point it may get shared with the select board so that they know what's happening or parts of it I can share with them when I go before them again. Yeah, I can absolutely send it to you. hi thank you so much for coming in my pleasure it's been a pleasure working with you

and collaborating on the feel-good fair um and i know that you and olive have been collaborating yes olive which risky is on the um other the shared services um collaborative in the south coast for the public health department um and she also was key in the feel-good fair um so yeah you guys got a gem with her she's fantastic keep her around she's awesome Unfortunately, we really don't have anything to say

about that. It's about the collaborative and what happens with the state funds that support the collaborative. I know. So sad to hear. I know. But fingers crossed because she's awesome. Do you have any questions for us? Oh, my God. You're putting me on the spot now. I don't usually get to ask questions. Questions, suggestions. No, I mean...

You know, I think I've gotten kind of a little bit of a taste through Donna, kind of like what you guys are looking, you know, looking forward to with your funds. I think, you know, Obviously, it's kind of different Dartmouth a little bit, you know, a little bit different every communities got their kind of like niche little

characteristics, but Yeah, I think just keeping keeping people with lived experience at the heart of it and just making sure you know transparency is key That's kind of like what I live by and the work that I do So, I mean this is nothing new or groundbreaking, but I don't know I think it's just important to kind of focus on that that was again just I know I'm here for kind of

like share outs from the conference and that was like the biggest thing for me was just making sure that like I We're not gatekeepers of the funds, you know.

Did you share this with New Bedford? Were there people from New Bedford that went?

No, there was, I don't think there was anyone from New Bedford that went. I haven't gotten a chance to connect with them on this yet. I think Karen would be really interested in seeing this. Because we're also part of, one of the things that I do is I go to and participate in the New Bedford Opioid Task Force meetings. that are monthly, which involves everybody in the communities around. And that's, again,

connecting with resources, meeting people, developing relationships. And so it's been very important. And Karen went to the Field Good Fair to support us, and she now wants to participate in it next year, right? She does. She wants to be a partner for next year. New Bedford, which has a bigger pot of money to spend, wants to participate.

collaborate with yes pending approval from all of their all of their systems but she would love to be involved uh in the feel-good fair next year which is she's an awesome partner as well i don't know how many of you guys have met karen but she's yeah dynamo love her is that another meeting for something else and she was in and i said you know we started talking but um but it

made a uh such a connection between the two of us because we spoke to each other about what we were doing and yeah um and she's she's so supportive um uh everything that's uh that westport is trying to do that dartmouth is trying to do all the municipalities around yeah and like delores she knows everyone so if you need someone to like talk about something or connections to resources anything like karen

is again just another wealth of knowledge yeah amazing she's awesome so okay thank you thank you guys for having me i appreciate it so have a safe drive home oh i will you guys as well okay all right so Um, the next is there any discussion from the committee about what we just heard from. From Rachel, no, I just think we need someone like Rachel here in Westport. All right so, um. The next item on the

agenda, I'm still the chair and reporting an update. So I just wanted to update on a couple of things I've been doing. 1 of them was police night out. And if you see behind you, I just had that poster board up that says, how should we spend our settlement? And I put some in the different areas and I asked people to number what they

thought was a priority. So that was the participation I was able to get. So if you look at them, you'll see people may have put more where kids are or harm reduction or treatment. And then they also, I wanted them to put any other suggestions they had. on the post-its. So there's a little bit more input from the community. Had I been feeling better, I could have engaged people more, but I wasn't really feeling well

that evening. So I did talk to people, a couple of people, and had them do it. So the police night out was fantastic. You guys are doing a fantastic thing by bringing the community together the way you are. I appreciate you saying it's a lot of hard work from several officers that months ahead of time coordinate this. So I think it's great

for our community, not just for the police department of everybody that's there and shows the collaboration amongst all departments in town. So I think it's a great event, a great town event. there were so many positive things i mean there was there were a lot of people with different tables you know talking about the um you know what their roles are in town and committees and but there was also a lot

of fun stuff there is the bubble bounce and um they were very giveaways they were baskets of i know i know our uh select board member rick mundy's son was carrying around this big popcorn basket and it had all the movie night and it had He wouldn't share any M&Ms with me though, I was very disappointed. But people really seemed to enjoy themselves, it was a beautiful evening. We couldn't have had

a better night. Yeah, yeah. So those are the kinds of events and things that us being part of really educates the community, lets them know we're here, we provide information. I handed out a lot of the coloring books that I have about parents sitting down with their kids. and coloring and it's teaching them about how to take care of themselves and how to avoid alcohol and drugs. And I would interact with

them. When the kids came up, I had my thing of, you know, the stress balls and asking them how, you know, engaging with the kids. How do you handle stress? What do you do? And then, you know, they would pick a bag or the stress ball. So there was a lot of engagement in what I could do.

But again, I had Olive help me set up. I asked her to help, so she had it set up because I had a board of health meeting right before that. And then a few people came over and sat with me and helped me.

And then I asked Detective Donovan, I said, you know, I think I'm going to need some help to pack up. And she came over with two other people and the vehicle, loaded it up, drove me over to my car, and unloaded it. Perfect.

So it was very helpful and I wanted to make sure I gave a shout out to, I didn't expect you all to really be doing anything with us because you had run the event. But those are the kinds of things that Rachel does and that a person who would be in a role like Rachel's in Westport would be doing. And so my segue to this is I have been talking to Mosaic, Allison, not Allison, Allie, who

came here and spoke to us from Mosaic, talking with her about the potential of having somebody in that kind of role in Westport.

And she has connected me with Taunton. And who is going to be sending me all their information and about what they did and roles and policies and all of that. I've received some and I have the 2 from Dartmouth and I have the 1 from New Bedford and I have stuff in the packets for people to look at. Not tonight, but at another point in time, but so. Moving on to

the next part, which is discussion and motion to advise a select board to move forward in hiring a substance use disorder and mental health community advocate. And so I have a statement to make. The process to create this committee started in mid 2024.

It was Olive and I who met with the select board and then wrote up the charter. The Opioid Settlement Fund Advisory Committee Charter was established in October of 2024.

Our first meeting was December 10th that year. Our purpose as an advisory committee is to provide guidance and recommendations to the select board to use these funds to address the opioid crisis, support affected individuals and families, promote public health initiatives, and ultimately save lives in Westport. Our objectives, we're an advisory role for strategic use of the funds. We are to have in community

engagement and decision-making process by following the abatement agreement expectations and how we've done that. is we've had first had a focus group in 2025. We did a professional survey in 2025 that was mailed. We did a survey at police night out in 2025. The school department's pending a survey in this year. We've had numerous guest

speakers, stakeholders from various agencies come and speak to us and talk to us about their programs and we've had input from attendees that have come to the meetings.

That's those are one and two of our objectives. Three and four is where I feel like we need to move to. Three is program development, identify and recommend program services or services that address prevention, treatment and recovery and risk reduction related to opioid misuse. And number four, monitoring and evaluation, which means established metrics

to evaluate the effectiveness of the initiatives. We have focused on the first two objectives. To move forward, we must move and focus on number three. So in reviewing the abatement agreement goals, one, it reflects community input. We have done that. We can continue to do that. It doesn't mean we have to stop doing that, but we

have done that. We address disparities in services. We don't have any services in Westport.

There's the disparity. Address mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and other behavioral health needs that occur with opioid use disorders. Leverage programs and services already reimbursed by other funds. And encourage innovation, fill gaps, and fix shortcomings of existing approaches. We don't have, we have very few existing approaches and we have a lot of shortcomings.

To accomplish the abatement agreement goals and help our community, we can craft a role in Westport that can leverage programs and services and advocate for our residents to help them navigate and connect to existing resources in surrounding municipalities.

This individual will also help educate our residents in prevention, harm and risk reduction, and treatment and recovery of overdose use disorder, other substance use disorders, and co-occurring mental health issues. This individual will be a bridge to services by liaison, liaisoning with surrounding community agencies, and by working with all departments

in Westport. The advocate will be available to support police, fire, school, council on aging, board of health, veterans agent, and our human resources department, which we never had before but we have now. This may require an MOU and possible cost sharing. But the benefits to the community are improved communication, collaboration, access to help and prevention of harm. I'm asking the committee to focus on

this initiative and identify specific responsibilities and credentials needed to fill this role.

The devil is in the details. And I ask that we laser focus and work together to create a service that Westport residents can be proud of and benefit from. And I ask for discussion. Two things. I'm going to ask a very basic question. Do we have a space for this person? We'll figure it out. It's, I, it's, believe it or not, we should start

figuring it out now. So, so, that's a big issue. Yeah, the devil is in the details. Yeah, so that's, so in other words, that, that has nothing to do with everything you said, but it has everything to do with, uh, reality, reality of life in, in our two main buildings right now. So that's, that's what, the, the other one is, um, you know, Is it a full-time position or a part-time position?

Devil in the details. Right. That's another one because then what is adequate compensation for a part-time position? What is an adequate compensation? Then you get into the good thing about it. I'm assuming that they're not going to be a town employee. They're going to probably be, or are they going to be a town employee? That's the question.

And that was the trade-offs that you were, why were you saying it was good if they weren't? i don't know oh okay i mean i um i mean i i think that's a that's a question that i think that the town administrator will carry a lot of weight on and so that may be worth having maybe a meeting with you and maybe val so

go in with with with coverage um so to uh to go over you know you know we're ready we've we've identified some money we're good to go you know all the things that you've just enumerated in terms of what's been done over the past year and a half and say now but we don't want to get to a point where we come to you with a proposal and we're back

to square two we've already we're already at square two we want to go to square three right use your analogy right and and and i would take that approach and i think we should be sitting here thinking Half the full time position for three quarter time position, 35 to $40,000 to start maybe $50,000. It's it, it will chew into the, to the, to the, it'll we, we can fund that out of reserves. And

I think we'll go back to the terms of funding the position that the matrix of valid five months or so ago. We get a lock into that so that when we pitch this to Chris, we say we have a spending plan and put this number in there. And then whatever it is, we're going to recommend and then put it up, slap it up

against that matrix. So, how would that yeah, we, you know, we, maybe we're only getting what? 33,000 dollars a year right now. We're getting more. We're getting more. Well, part of it is. To factor in the, um, the family, because the. Okay, that was that's like, yeah, because they just. that was still in court so so right now we stand at close to four hundred thousand dollars in our account and

i remember that val your your brubricks said ninety thousand a year i think it was like around ninety i might have been ninety nine averaging for the full amount of years right sort of total yeah and i mean we can even look at it say let's do a three-year plan And this is what we're going to do for three years. And we'll evaluate and then say, you know, this is working or

this is not working. What do we need to do? Like, is it lemming that he he he's the one who helped with the car industry in Japan where you go in and you do something and it doesn't work. So they fix it and then they and it refines the process. We refine our process. But I'm thinking maybe even a two year plan. Well, it's up to the committee to craft this right

and whatever anybody thinks I have stuff for you to take home to look at to kind of I'm looking at other municipalities what they're doing, what their paperwork looks like with their processes. But but I think, you know, I think there's more information to get to help us. But I think we have some foundation to be able to move forward with this. and it sounds like she has been making it up

as she went along she's had the advantage of a strong youth advocate and a history of that she also has background though she she worked in the field she knows what she's doing oh ideally we'd want to have somebody like that yeah yeah i would say that that is a nice model i mean why recreate the wheel everything she's saying is is You know, it's generative in the terms that

coordinating services looking for grants, it's not just direct services and the services go away. It looks like it's trying to build infrastructure, that particular position.

So, you know, is she a town employee for Dartmouth? Sounds like it.

She is. I think they split. So my understanding is that she came in and 90% of her Salary is paid for by the fund, 10%. And as the years go on, more is gonna be coming from the town. It's going to be less. So I don't know how they figured that rubric out. And actually, Chris Vitale hired her. Right. So he's also familiar with that

as well. So I would say we sort of stop there. Yeah. It's very concrete.

And Chris is familiar with it. Chris is also suggesting that we just hire a program manager, right? And I don't want to do that. I want to have somebody who's going to be like Rachel, who's doing it all. um and because i want somebody who's out in the community that's what i prefer um but the we may come down to you know that that's not going to be supported by the select

board has to support all this so we really have to have it really clearly defined what we're going to do so but i'm just curious for you fran because you've presented that you have this idea for this position in the school and you're hoping to get money from the um the fund to help support that role and I know we have our chair of our we do have the chair I know

really here yes yeah yeah I mean if you listen to her and she said what are the calls that she's gotten mostly it was from school base right we know the parents we know the kids we are kind of seeing it firsthand as well as I'm sure you are chief And so it would be a love. I do not have anyone, nor is there anyone in town to do that kind of

coordination. So because of that, it's like a piece here. We might refer somebody here, but there's no follow up. There is no one coordinating that work and that work that needs to be done is a direct result. of opioid and addiction and I have so many kids who are living with grandparents or in foster care because they no longer have parents and never mind the vaping that's a whole nother issue

right but I don't have a person I do not have the money to have a person who can this can be their baby and this needs to be if you listen to her She's driving this agenda in town. And so, yes, I would love to have one just for the school, but I maybe think that a better way to think about it, or in some ways is to invest that town-wise, not

just school-wise, so that they can be larger coordination. Because we're not going to be able to do, we're not Fall River, we're not New Bedford, we're not going to have all the providers, but the connections with Fall River or New Bedford and the people who are having that is probably what we need. We need that coordination. Dr.

Roy, do you think, can you imagine, given Craig's questions, like that person could the person be housed in your space i'd find a space i find a space what about supervision could because you or someone supervise them get if they were a town-wide position supervised co-supervised I don't know I mean we were prepared in the job description that the committee approved right

we were prepared to have that person be an administrator within the district a coordinator and many districts do have those positions so so yes we could certainly do that but usually that then tends to be a solely a school-based position that's why I was and not necessarily a town position but can you imagine it would you be open to do you think your team would be open to do

you think the school department I would be open to committee can you speak to that the school committee chair Evan Gendrew um I appreciate the question. I think yes, would be the I don't want to speak for the entire committee because we haven't discussed this since our approval of it previously. But I would say, I think, given our discussion on this during the budget season, we'd be open to that. It's also

not like this isn't the first time that this has been done where a coordinated shared position has been made. So I think we could you know follow that model and other towns have shared positions between departments we could obviously in some sort of agreement or in the job description we have to iron out one what the responsibilities

are what the time commitments are if there's a certain allocation between departments if we're pulling monies from certain departments to cover any overage above the annual allotment we're getting from the funds and then reporting obviously would be the other aspect of that. So, but I, we can work those details out and I think that I'd be open to that. So, yeah. - That's good to know. Thank you. - Sort of a

matrix management type of thing. - Yeah. And part of my vision is that because all these services to impact the entire town is that there could be some shared cost but it might be very minimal like so we talked about initially you wanted 40 000 you suggested 40 000 from our funds and my suggestion was well if that happens could we have that person be in the community part of the time

and not just in the school system um but if that person was also available to be with police and go and do interventions with families in the home that kind of thing, that there would be this, as Rachel pointed out, I'm watching this crazy show called Silos, but silos, and I felt this way, that we function in these different groups, and boy, we have resources and strengths that we could be

sharing and really making something beautiful out of if we would just sit down at the table and hammer it out. So I'm glad to hear that you feel like um Evan that that the school board could be on board with us and try to figure it out it's going to be working with um uh Chris Vitale and trying to iron out all those details and of course there are legal issues right

so part of it is I thought well I'll supervise the person because I'm a clinician and I can do that I can't do it I'm on a committee it's not um Val looked it up and we can't do that there are our role is this committee yeah our role in this committee we we really can't do that It's a state law. I'd have to look it up again. That I mean, it's

a little different for you because you are also a town employee. Yeah, but I'm not have to parse that. But a committee chair, I'd have to look up the general law. It's not supposed to be this primary supervisor for a town. And then, like, you know, making that kind of commitment to is not I'm not appropriate, but under the circumstances, but I I you know, supervision is going to be an important

factor and then where that could happen. And I know that the school department can do that. So, so that would also be another positive thing about joining forces and creating this crafting this. to meet the needs of the school, to meet the needs of the town, the police, fire. And I do think if I talk to our veterans agent and I said, you know, what do you think of that? She goes,

well, you know, I may be moving to be closer to the Council on Aging.

So to be to support because there's so many veterans in the Council on Aging.

I think there's a way for us to make bridges within our own town, create more collaboration in our own town and do an interdepartment agreement or mou i guess that's what it called um and then have this person be our person in town that everybody can go to including people in the community i agree it should be a collaborative effort you know whether in their schools for a certain period of time

around the street with the police and we all need to work together regarding this this issue and i think the only way you can do is having by having one person work within the departments and i think each department needs to identify how they can work with this person. So that's part of the homework, right? And I don't know about the fire department or whether or not you want to

communicate with them if you're able to. Yeah, because firefighter Peronsky is still on, he's just come back after some recovery time. So from his, he had surgery.

So anyway, I, or any other thoughts or questions? Yes, David. I think that hiring some creating a town employee position with the opioid fund settlement funds is a misappropriation of the funds i don't think that is the mission of the opioid settlement and i think that it's premature to use those funds to hire a town employee i think we should find out who in the town

would apply for the money through the RFA mechanism and we've been delaying this excessively over a year and a half so we still don't know who in town would apply for this money and I think the job of the committee is to disperse the opioid settlement funds throughout the community not to engage in the mission to create a town employee who would be a coordinator a coordinator of what um uh I think we should find

out how the funds could be spent by dispersing them throughout the committee through the RFA mechanism find out who wants the money who would come forward with programs that would use the money to interact directly with persons who suffer from opioid use disorder, which is the primary target of the settlement funds. It's very nice to spend money on prevention. It's

nice to spend money on vape detectors and things like that. But I think that the primary goal of the settlement funds was to, first of all, save lives, and secondly, address the specific needs of persons suffering from opioid use disorder. And we haven't really done anything along those lines. And I think we should move forward as rapidly as possible to get the RFA out, find out in the community,

who could come forward with programs that would use the funds effectively within the community. And then if there is money left over, we could consider spending up to 15% of the funds on administrative costs and create a coordinator. So I'm probably going to vote no on the motion. I'm not surprised. I think though, at least the way I described it, was not an administrator. I think as we

were evolving it, administration is going to sit within whatever entity a person is going to work on. You're looking at somebody who is going to be more of a networker, project coordinator, oversee the RFR process ideally, and then also be a community resource person within town government. on community resources. I'm intrigued by the idea of the

school department because mental health services aren't being delivered in town. Unless you run into a rare coincidence. Medical services aren't being delivered in town. Correctional services aren't being delivered in town. Educational services to children aren't being delivered in town. So we have -- I mean, systemically on a big scale. Right. There are individual providers. Yeah. There are providers, but in

terms of having -- A system. Yeah, the systems. We have a system. For school -- for education. Yeah. And that's touching a significant target population, particularly in the prevention area and -- Well, intervention, too. And intervention, particularly with, you know, with slightly older kids. Early intervention, which is a key. getting it early yes and so i've

heard from parents saying prevention is preventing it is the most important thing because they're going through hell the other thing is that i think you're wrong david and i think you're wrong about creating the position rachel is an example of that they created that position um mosaic on board Taunton has the position, New Bedford has a

position. Other municipalities have created this because they need somebody to spearhead what is in the abatement agreement, which is not just about opioid addiction. It is part of it, and it's a very important part of it because people die, right? People die. So part of the problem, as we know, because we have a committee, is that a person with lived experience We have no one on our committee who has

actually struggled with addiction and is in recovery and part of it can be our process. We might create something separate from that. That's a possibility to get more input, but it's difficult. But if you read the abatement agreement and everything in the abatement agreement, it gives us great flexibility, especially when it comes to kids. and addressing not just because you cannot separate out mental health issues

and substance use disorders. But I will say mental health is a rabbit hole unto itself. Yes. That you have mental health issues Without substance use or misuse issues, and it's, it's, it can swallow us up if we had a mental health outreach workers. No, and that's not what I'm saying. You can, that is a rabbit hole. The issue, the person's

responsibility is to connect people and help them navigate and be a bridge to services.

We've been talking about bridge to services from the beginning. I've been saying bridge. We need to bridge. We need to bridge between each other. We need to bridge with everything that surrounds us. That's the work I've been doing. The last year, I've been bridging to all these different places, and that's what we need somebody to do. We need somebody to be the face, the voice, the heart, of helping in this community

and we don't really have that. Actually one of our hearts of helping just retired. So, which is Linda, our north town nurse. We don't have a town nurse right now for people to even go to, but yes. - The position that you're envisioning creating, would this person address alcohol abuse?

Which is the main substance that's abused in this town. I mean, it would be any, it says it and the it says substance use. Right. Other substance use disorders. There again, the role is as a resource and a bridge to existing services and someone who can develop relationships and build trust even people go to them and say I'm struggling and then help them

connect so I you know are we gonna we will we what we can do is the person who's in this position is going to keep records not of names of people but the person came in and they were struggling with alcohol and i connected them with a service there should be some that person should be coming some record so we can keep track of who they're seeing what the problems are and

then that would also be oh we need to work on this then we need to provide this in the community and how will you protect confidentiality um the person has to be one of the things about confidentiality is the person has to be a licensed person they have to be in what way well licensed as a nurse I am sworn to confidentiality. So somebody who is has to be sworn to confidentiality

by their license. So what's the credentialing going to be? That's what we have to decide. Because if you credential, if you hire a credentialed person, the salary is going to be substantial. well but anyone with a credential is going to need a good salary and if we combined resources well what we may be able to support that but just say for an example say for an example fran dr roy had suggested

sixty thousand dollars from the funds to fund this position and she was going to find through other grants the other sixty thousand so that would be a commitment from us as a committee or from the select board because they're going to make the decision to do sixty thousand dollars to support this role that's sixty thousand dollars i think it's well worth it but that's where we're at the other when when val

did her rubric and it said like ninety thousand or whatever i said okay sixty thousand for a person thirty thousand for flexibility for other things we say we need to get this or we need to buy more Narcan because the state's not providing Narcan. That kind of thing. Did you catch what Rachel said about the number of direct contacts that she had since she started her

job? It's a new job. Five. But she's, yeah, direct contact with individuals, but the work she's doing in the community, she's having much more contact.

But my point is that funds that are used to hire a new town employee will not go to direct contact with persons suffering from opioid use disorder, which is the prime mission of the settlement funds. But that takes a lot of forms that can be facilitated by other things. I mean, I wouldn't advocate for spending all our money on this. I think we do want to

allocate funds to do additional things and do the RFP. And so that's going to be important. But I also think that The way the kind of things that can be done, whether it's. You know, establishing a fund that can help with transportation or, you know, there's a lot of ways that part of that person's charge. Would be to prioritize and support people's treatment, you know, and it's sort of up to us.

In terms of drafting a job description, you know, it would have to be approved.

To sort of set some priorities. I really can't support vague. vague descriptions of what a person's job description would be. And anything that doesn't disperse funds directly to people who are either persons suffering from opioid use disorder or providers who have direct contact with such persons, I think is a misuse of the funds. It's not a misuse. As a priority. It's not

a priority. Furthermore, I think that if we're talking about $60,000, that's a huge fraction of the amount of money in the TIL. And I think that it's not really justified based on what the mission of the settlement funds should be. Prevention and early intervention are, it's like a four-legged stool. It's prevention, early intervention, treatment and intervention, and-- Treatment, recovery, and harm reduction.

It's one of the eight categories specified by the governor. So it is technically-- but it's the last one. Right. But this position, but this position is also going to coordinate direct services, right? So we're never in the town of Westport, even if you had a couple of organizations come in and provide, I don't know, sober housing or a couple of

things, you're really piecemealing. So if we think bigger, we need to think like a highway, an infrastructure, right? So if you have someone that's tapped hopping in to the Fall River and the New Bedford resources for the residents of Westport we're going to be able to impact a lot more people than just a couple of new programs right so so this is is on your four-legged stool hitting

all four of those this person doesn't have to be it's not important that this person provides the direct service but what's important that they are direct services being received right so right right clarify your to clarify what you're saying so you envision that a person affected by opioid use disorder is going to come to this person Could be. That would be a piece of it. I need XYZ

services. Yeah. And the person is going to say, okay, I have a Rolodex. You need this. You need that. Is that how you envision it? Yes. That's how much of our social work happens and our clinical work happens in schools right now. We are connecting with outside organizations. And so this is just a, you know, it's not just kids, but it's now we're talking about the larger community. We do this all

the time because we don't have the infrastructure ourselves to deliver those kinds of clinical services. We have to partner with outside folks. So you envisioned that town members come to this person for referral? i don't think that's the only one no no no it's not the only one among other things yes that could be one of the things that this person which is what she said a great example here's

an example um somebody has an overdose somebody overdoses in their home their children are present emergency services come take the person get them narcan maybe they refuse to go to the hospital whatever but those kids watch their parent take an overdose where's the support and help for those kids And I brought that up when I did some

meeting with the school department and saying, "Oh, we needed you. I needed a person to come to be part of the committee." What happens to these kids? So my feeling is, or my idea is, is this person who is working in the town knows this happens because they're working with police and they're working in the school department and they can intervene with those kids and they can help those kids. So you

envision direct patient- I envision someone being able to connect and and to be able to help coordinate to help those kids. It might be child and family services. It might be bringing in somebody. I think there's someone that comes in from one of the agencies, right? So that kid's going to be seen by that person in the agency. Okay, but if there's an incident in the home and a person is, say,

arrested and there are children in the home, childhood services are called automatically.

i think this position yes but they're not going to leave the kids they're not going to say no dcf may be close yeah okay dcf is different dcs is who funds is the one who funds all the agencies that provide the services to families i think in the scenario we're talking about i think that the model would be if somebody suffers an overdose in their residence arrest isn't obviously a preferred option

but they go to the hospital they have to go to the hospital you know one of the things we would do is have the officer on scene contact michelle who then if we have this position would contact that person in this position to provide more immediate services follow-up services like we've talked about michelle and officer chica go every two weeks You know, because that's what we can pay for through

the grant. If we have somebody in this position, this could provide probably a more immediate follow up services, especially if we're talking about the scenario with children where they can call the person and hopefully the following day or the next day, this person can contact them and get them the services that they provide. Right. So when they

take someone away, they don't tell the kids, well, get yourself breakfast tomorrow and go to school. Someone is in the home. Yeah, we wouldn't leave a kid. Of course. So my point is that a coordinator to handle this is a redundant service.

No, because once that, it's not a redundant service because once that, let's say, settles down, the immediate safety needs, whether you're reunited or not, the trauma impacts these kids for years and years and years, right? Years and years and years. So these kids who have been impacted by parental addiction need extra support. Most likely those parents too,

they're not bringing their kids to the baseball field because they're struggling themselves, right? So there's, you know, I think you're thinking very small and very focused and I think what we're asking you to do or what I'm asking you to think about is the number of touch points we can have this larger infrastructure we can build for

the town of Westport and their residents the children the families the people who don't have children in town I think this is the in my opinion knowing the coordination that is needed this is going to have a much longer a larger impact than sort of isolated programs do you have a motion I do have a motion I'm a promotion to approve the approved to advise to the select board to move

forward in hiring a substance use disorder mental health community advocate I'll second all right all in favor I'm sure you have a discussion yeah you know the discussion have a discussion I just wanted to bring point of order yeah no thank you so much thank you discussion I've made my point yes you you can and yeah and you have and so I I just want to maybe with the motion make an

adjustment to that um What I want us to do as a committee is to agree to focus on this issue to present it to the select board because we have to still develop it. Why don't we do this? Why don't we pass the first motion? Okay. Then have a second motion regarding how you want to handle it in terms of approaching the select board. Because I think we've

made the declaration. We've made the commitment. The second one is how do we want to execute it? So can you make the motion? - Well, we need to. - Okay, so a motion on the table. - We have two motions on the table.

- Okay, so. - I second it. - You second it and everybody except. - We open the floor to discussion. - Okay, and so let's ask who approves or who agree. - All in favor. - All in favor, thank you so much. - Aye. - Aye. - Aye. - Aye. Okay, so that's we have five any opposed any opposed. I vote no. No. Did you vote? Yes or

no? Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, so that's okay. All right. So did you get that Bob? Okay, so all in favor one opposed and so from the process um is as the chair i would like um to move that we focus only on this issue um and this position that people uh that we focus only on this and that's what we focus on in the next meeting with the goal of getting uh

something prepared to present to the select board Yes. After that meeting. Yes. Did you get that, Bob? It's okay.

With more details? Val, can you? Sure. Can you restate the point? Yeah, please. So I move that we spend the next meeting focused on preparing a presentation to recommend a position to the select board. Any second? I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. Okay, great. um so i have i'm was trying to put packets together for people to take home some of the information i have so you can look at it um val and i did a little draft of you know maybe it's my draft i've maybe it's me so i i just wrote something out about what i would like and or what

i think is going to be helpful um And so if everybody can maybe check online municipalities who have shared agreements for this role and come back with, you think we should have A, B, C, D, E, and N responsibilities, the person should have these credentials. My concern is that the person is make sure that this person is credentialed in a substance use or mental health field. and has

credentialed and there was something else, but is either a social worker or mental health counselor or a substance use, they have different initials, but that they have specific experience in those fields and the credentials in those fields. It seems like an extra charge, perhaps, for Dr. Roy to think about if it were a combined or shared position house there,

what would you want on the table? What might that look like? Yeah, I think honestly, I think it's very similar. It's this idea of a wraparound coordinator, we've called it in some places. I've used that term before. So yeah, we can certainly think about that. Everything you're saying would also gel. Yeah, would gel with what I'm saying. I would be interested to know what the credentials of the

Dartmouth coordinator is. Yes. I don't know if it's in there, but she has a degree and she has this it's either in public health or substance. We're talking about Rachel. Rachel isn't in there. I don't think it occurs. A question for Mosaic too.

Yeah, Mosaic will also be able to guide us. And the other place that will be able to guide us and give us some legal advice for free is through the Department of Public Health. There's an organization for boards of health, and there's an attorney. And she was on call with Olive the other day. So I can also send stuff to her for legal stuff. You have legal counsel on the school department

or is it the town? No, we have our own. Yeah. So that's enough. But the legal piece is part of it. And also for the police department to think about, well, if you have somebody in this role, what would you want them to do for the police department? Would it be if the social worker go out weekly instead of biweekly? I think it would be just off the top of my head,

it would be on as needed basis, meaning we have an incident that happens. Rather than waiting a week, we can have a machine that detective Donovan or some chicken reach out to this person and provide a service more immediately. Right. And so that's my kind of point with that. And that's that's for post overdose because crisis when somebody's in crisis is the fast team. And this person is not really going to

be someone who's going to go out and respond to a mental health crisis or any other kind of crisis in the community. That person's role is more of the bridge and the navigator and connecting all the departments, working with all the departments, maybe on the same case, right? Kids, the parent overdose, the kids are in school. So I think that's good. All right. Is there any other discussion? I feel

free to email me call me with any questions or any ideas.

And our next meeting is at September 15th. And if there's no further business, no topics reasonably anticipated for the other question. Yes. In light of our focus next month, I'm trying to think about I was planning to share. The priorities do we want to wait on that? Your water and. I mean, that could, I don't think that'll inform the process that it could

inform some details of priorities, but maybe. it could yeah it could inform someone like if you're going to work towards a job description almost okay yeah that's what i was trying to think yeah okay so as a possible so i'll share it and then we can sort of clarify how that fits into the agenda people can then at least look at it beforehand and then we can decide

if we want to discuss it more fully at a future meeting that sounds good sounds good sounds good okay so if there's no further business i need a motion to adjourn so moved Second. Second. Third. All in favor? Aye. Aye.