The West Virginia First Foundation has such great responsibility — and such potential to help the state — the executive director wants to make sure he’s not on his own.
“The last thing I think any of us want to be is sort of by fiat or from a high castle, dictating what local decisions need to be made,” Jonathan Board, executive director of the foundation, said on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
“I’ve had the privilege of traveling throughout this state over the last eight or nine weeks since my start, and I’ll tell you region from region, community to community, the need may be the same but the solutions can often be incredibly different.”
So Board is pleased that this week the West Virginia First Foundation established an expert panel made up of leaders from around the state who will provide guidance on strategies to combat the opioid epidemic.
Furthermore, the foundation this week established an “initial opportunity committee” to get some grant application parameters in shape and moving. That group is meant to support Board, who just became executive director a couple of months ago.
“Ultimately, we’re going to have a really robust engagement model where everyone can access and create some really wonderful partnerships there. But we understand that it’s gonna require a needs assessment, that’s going to require engineering and software and application, that’s going to take some time,” Board said.
“But the need persists now, literally live in this moment. And so that’s why we want to engage with certain criteria, and that’s where that committee is going to come in and probably look across and talk with the local communities, see what those specific needs are, some of that low hanging fruit throughout that continuum of care, and isolate those and really just start getting tools in the hands of boots on the ground.”
West Virginia will have about $1 billion following a number of lawsuits against distributors, wholesalers and pharmacies. The money is still coming in.
The “West Virginia First Memorandum of Understanding” lays out the terms for the state and the many counties and cities that may receive a portion of settlement dollars to push back against ongoing drug addiction issues.
A major portion of the millions of dollars, 72.5%, goes to the private, nonstock, nonprofit West Virginia First Foundation, which will now distribute the funding for work toward abating the opioid epidemic in communities around the state.
The money can go to a variety of efforts, but the state has such needs that several members of the board have expressed urgency to get moving.
“I think you can talk with your friends and your neighbors and any West Virginian — because this catches all of us — and there’s often reoccurring themes, right? We know communities handle this challenge differently because they have to. There are service area deserts where we don’t have anything, let alone wraparound,” Board said.
“But when you talk with those, there are these reoccurring themes that I think we will be able to address in this short term, really focused disbursement model, if that’s what it becomes, and that’s what we’re hopeful that it does become and then we can build out from there.”
The newly-established expert panel includes:
Treatment: Laura Lander, associate professor in the department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry in the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute at West Virginia University.
Prevention: Greg Puckett, a commissioner in Mercer County and as Executive Director of Community Connections Inc.
Recovery & Lived Experience: Emily Birckhead, executive director of West Virginia Alliance of Recovery Residences.
Corrections & Reentry: William Marshall, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Systems of Care, Health Policy & Management: Christina Mullins, deputy secretary of Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders at the West Virginia Department of Human Services.
Law Enforcement & Judicial Systems: Jess Gundy, criminal justice program director at the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security.
First Responders: Adam Crawford, medical director for the General Division Emergency Department at Charleston Area Medical Center Health System.
