Tamaqua partners for grant to battle opioid battle

In Tamaqua, projects like Hope and Coffee and the Art of Escape room have brought together students and the community in an effort to fight the opioid epidemic.

Those partnerships are attracting attention and now leading to major grant opportunities.

A partnership between Tamaqua Area School District and a local nonprofit recently earned an “unprecedented” five-year state grant for a project aimed at preventing opioid abuse.

The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency has approved $290,000 to fund the first 18 months of the grant, and it’s expected that they’ll continue to fund the program through 2023.

Preventing Raiders Opioid Misuse in a Safe Environment (PROMISE) will provide support and skills to help youth to navigate challenges they’ll face as adults and prevent misuse of illicit substances. It will include separate programs aimed at students, families, and the general public.

It’s a partnership between Tamaqua Area School District and the nonprofit Clinical Outcomes Group Inc.

Existing collaboration between the school district and community groups made Tamaqua an attractive location to use the grant, officials said.

“There are not many communities that have the infrastructure in place and already moving. This wheel’s already turning,” said Jennifer Melochick, director of organizational development for Clinical Outcomes Group.

For community

PROMISE will be focused primarily on Tamaqua Area Middle School students, but also includes training and media campaigns aimed at the entire community.

All of the programs included in the grant have shown evidence that they help prevent opioid abuse.

One of the programs covered under the grant will teach life skills to students at Tamaqua Area Middle School. Students will learn skills and tools to deal with anxiety, depression and stress.

“We’ll help develop greater self-esteem, greater self-confidence, so that instead of dealing with anxiety and depression by using substances, they’re going to be able to see and reach out to different opportunities,” said Courtney Tamagini, PROMISE project director for Clinical Outcomes Group.

Another program will teach those skills to families with kids between ages 10-14 through weekly sessions. They hope to provide assistance to families who have children dealing with behavioral issues, by helping to set boundaries and encourage positive behavior with the hope of ultimately preventing substance abuse.

The partnership also involves a group of researchers from Penn State. They will oversee the media campaign as well as a program which encourages everyone in the community to take action which helps include youth in the community. The “social development strategy” will consist of two to five training sessions over the project which will be open to everyone in the community.

Long-term commitment

Melochick and Caitlin Miller, a speech pathologist in Tamaqua Area School District and adviser to the Raiders Step-UP club, co-authored the grant.

Micah Gursky of the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership and St. Luke’s Miners Campus said the long-term commitment is important. He said there are programs that are proven to work, but they usually take a significant commitment of time and effort.

“The good news is we knows what works — but the problem is it doesn’t work quickly, and it’s really hard, and it takes everyone working together,” Gursky said.

Clinical Outcomes, which is based in Pottsville, may not be well-known to Tamaqua residents right now, but they are looking forward to becoming a part of the Tamaqua community. They are planning to open an office in Tamaqua, and Tamagini is a Tamaqua-area resident who has stepchildren in the school district.

The group hopes to partner with businesses in the district to help create incentives for students who participate in the program. They are also holding a contest among fifth-graders in the school district to come up with a logo for the project.

Madelyn Roman-Scott, a program analyst with the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, said the process to apply for the grant was competitive. She said most of the grants they give out are one to two years. To receive this grant, applicants had to show meaningful collaboration between multiple stakeholders in the community.

“This is not something that’s done every day, this long-term commitment. We’re expecting amazing results, of course with help from the community.”