Heroin ‘Wake Up Call’ talk to educate students in York

(York) — Since its formation in the summer of 2014, the York County Heroin Task Force has held at least 65 presentations about the drug epidemic facing the area, including events in one-third of the local school districts.

“However,” said Coroner Pam Gay, a member of the York County Heroin Task Force, “we knew we needed help.”

So the group partnered with the Byrnes Health Education Center. And in less than one year, it developed a program about the issue for middle and high school students.

For more than 30 minutes, members of the task force — including Gay and Chief Deputy Prosecutor Dave Sunday — on Wednesday addressed the Rotary Club of York about the course, during its meeting at the Yorktowne Hotel.

The program is called “Heroin: The Wake Up Call” and lasts one hour. Four school districts in York County have signed up, and the class is also being offered across southcentral Pennsylvania. The heroin crisis is a complex issue, members acknowledge, but they hope to address the problem through prevention — before people end up in rehabilitation, prison, or dying.

York County heroin deaths up in 2015

“If one student decides not to use, based or something we said or something they heard, then we did a good job. We made a difference,” said Jamie Reisinger, the director of education services for the Byrnes Health Education Center. “And I hope it’s more than one.”

Some of the topics that are covered in the program include:

• Prescription drugs, and how they can be the “gateway” to heroin use.
• What heroin can and will do to a person’s health — and his or her family.
• The Good Samaritan Law, which gives people who call for help and stay with those who are overdosing immunity from being prosecuted for certain crimes.

So far, the center has contacted 170 schools throughout the region, Reisinger said. The first class will be held next week in Franklin County.

Schools can choose the way the program is put on. So, he said, the course can be held in one class, for example, or as an assembly that involves everyone.

In 2015, 59 deaths in York County have, so far, been linked to heroin.

York group gives out heroin antidote

“And hopefully, hopefully, at some point, we’re going to see change,” he said. “Not only in York County, but statewide.”

The heroin problem, he said, did not happen overnight. But by getting the information out there, Reisinger said he hopes that students are able to think and help one another.

If you go:

iWILLRecover, an addiction recovery website and group, and the York County Heroin Task Force, are holding a presentation on Feb. 8 about drug education and awareness at Northern High School. At the event, iWILLRecover will also donate kits containing the opioid antidote naloxone.

What: Drug education and awareness presentation
Where: Northern High School, 653 S Baltimore St., Carroll Township
When: Feb. 8 at 6:30 p.m.
Who: iWillRecover, the York County Heroin Task Force