The USU Extension is hosting another Community Opioid Education Dinner on March 24 however it is full so registration is closed. Nevertheless, the material that will be shared during the dinner will be made available online to the public the day after the event. Health and Wellness Coordinator, Chapel Taylor-Olsen took time to discuss the details with Castle Country Radio.

“Actually, we cover events in Carbon, Emery and Weber Counties, and we picked those three counties because we look at the state’s statistics on opioid overdose. These three counties consistently have much higher rates than the state overall and Utah has one of the highest rates of overdose deaths in the country overall,” explained Taylor-Olsen. Although the size of the three counties is relatively small the opioid numbers are extremely high for people who are impacted by overdose deaths.

The course was brought to the area through a grant and although this is the final session for the time being the material shared during the dinner will be made available online for folks to have access. “If you go to that page we have a button at the bottom called Previous Events & Recordings. If you go there, you can actually watch a recording of our previous series and get the exact same presentation that we gave to attendees last time. As soon as our events are done next week, we’ll be posting a recording of this series as well and you can watch that one,” said Taylor-Olsen. This information can easily be retrieved by visiting the USU Extension website at https://extension.usu.edu/heart/community-education-dinner

Another important feature that can also be seen online is the organization’s resource book. “Another one of our main goals with both of these series was to increase resource awareness and let people know what things are available in our communities to help with substance use disorder, with recovery, to help people who are in crisis, and try to compile all of that information into one easy to find resource, we call that our resource book. We have one for Carbon and Emery County. We have one for Weber county, another one of our programs actually created one for Grand and all of those resources books are also on our website,” stated Taylor-Olsen. The organization keeps the resource information up to date at all times.

To learn more about Community Opioid Education visit their website at https://extension.usu.edu/heart/community-education-dinner