Spotlight on Appanoose County Collaboration Council and SIPDO!
SIPDO, What is that?
SIPDO stands for Strategic Initiatives to Prevent Drug Overdoses. SIPDO is funding provided by the state of Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) Bureau of Substance Abuse through the Federal CDC Overdose Data to Action Grant. SIPDO covers nine counties in the state, including 4 counties in the Seida Community Action area in southeast Iowa, Appanoose, Keokuk, Mahaska and Wapello counties.
The Appanoose County Collaboration Council, including the city administrator of Centerville and the police department, give their input and ideas to help guide the SIPDO project in their county.
SIPDO County Coordinators:
● Each county is assigned a coordinator that works with the community. They encourage individuals and organizations to help with four major strategies in cooperation with county coalitions.
SIPDO Training Coordinator:
● The training coordinator informs individuals and organizations regarding Substance Use Disorders/SUD. Some of the training that they provide education on include:
★ “Trauma-Informed Care for First Responders”
★ “Psychostimulants: The Vital Information for Iowa’s Front Line”
★ “Primary Prevention Strategies to Address Opioid Use at the Community Level”
★ “Stigma associated with Substance Use Disorders”
★ And many more…..
The four major strategies:
● Strategy One: Media Campaign
➢ Radio spots, TV commercials, and visual banners highlight who the person is rather than the medical battle of addiction. (“See the Person Not the Addiction”)
● Strategy Two: Alterations to the Physical Environment:
➢ The city or county leadership works to change the environments which are leading to increased drug use in the county. (Lighting, Cameras, etc.)
● Strategy Three: Surveillance of High-Risk Public Areas:
➢ Local law enforcement and community members address “hot spots” where drugs are being sold in communities through increased surveillance efforts.
● Strategy Four: Academic Detailing:
➢ SIPDO County Coordinator meets with physicians and nurse practitioners to discuss alternatives to pain management and the dangers of prescribing opioids and amphetamines.
The goals of the SIPDO grant include:
● Reduce licit (not forbidden by law) and illicit (forbidden by law) drug deaths.
● Use data to monitor emerging trends and direct prevention activities for licit and illicit opioids and other drugs.
● Strengthen state and local capacity to respond to the drug overdoses crisis.
● Work with healthcare providers, first responders, and other public-facing entities to reduce unsafe exposure to opioids.
● Coordinate with public safety and community-based partners to rapidly identify overdose threats, reverse overdoses, link people to effective treatment, and reduce the harms associated with licit and illicit drugs.
● Increase public awareness about the risks of opioids.
The majority of the strategies are done by the coordinator with the help of their supervisor if needed, and the training is done by the training coordinator. Coordinators get guidance from other coordinators in the SIPDO counties to increase the awareness within the community and hopefully decrease the overdoses.
The Appanoose County Collaboration Council is mainly focused on meth and opioids. There is one coordinator in Appanoose County, a supervisor, and a training coordinator. SIPDO efforts focus on all four of these strategies at once until the goals are met. Once the goals of the strategy are completed, the coordinator and council still have to maintain them and keep increasing the awareness to hopefully decrease the stigma around substance use disorders. The SIPDO project and the Appanoose County Collaboration Council use the Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) process (see the photo below) throughout their work.
(Thanks to Cristy Toloza for updating us on the Appanoose County Collaboration Council and SIPDO. )
