The Lowell Police Department and its partners have developed a three-year program to address the opioid crisis, beginning in Sept. 2016 and extending through Aug. 2019. It has two parts: (1) an intervention component for overdose victims and (2) an early intervention program for their children. Developed by the LPD, Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, the Lowell Health Department, Lowell House, Inc. (LHI), and the Mental Health Association of Greater Lowell (MHA), the project has commissioned the UMass Lowell Center for Community Engagement and Research, along with key faculty with expertise in addiction and criminal justice, public health and epidemiology, to monitor the project timeline and milestones and measure the results of the interventions against project goals.
Funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance/Smart Policing Initiative Program, the intervention (the Community Opioid Outreach Program, CO-OP) engages an LPD officer and staff from the Lowell Health Department and from LHI. The team will make contact with an overdose victim within 24-48 hours and connect them to immediate treatment services. The early intervention, Project CARE (Child Assessment Response Evaluation), will involve MHA; it will target the children, grandchildren and minor siblings of overdose victims and fast-track them to a host of services including counseling. For information: Robin Toof and Wilson Palacios (co-PIs), Nicole Champagne and Melissa Wall.