Howard County Systems of Care opens to outpouring of requests, say officials

The service, located in an office at the Family Service Association, treated its first patient before noon and generated a bevy of voicemail requests, said Sherry Rahl, the Turning Point navigator. The response comes after months of promoting the service and its potential impact.

“I am excited about what is going on already today. It’s so good I can’t put my office together,” she joked. “It is absolutely phenomenal.” 

Rahl said the first patient, a recovering addict, was connected during a meeting with six different resources and has been scheduled for follow-up appointments – kicking off an inclusive approach nurtured since last fall.

A drug summit in September 2017 first brought together around 65 officials from law enforcement, government, healthcare and more. Included were roundtable discussions among the attendees, as they identified their priorities in attacking a problem that’s plagued nearly every community in America.

Then, in November 2017, a crowd filled the auditorium at Inventrek Technology Park to hear Howard County Commissioner Paul Wyman unveil the county’s plan of attack on the opioid crisis. It was a direct follow-up to the summit held about a month prior.

Now, the program is taking the first of many steps with those most directly affected by the drug epidemic.

That long-term process, said Rahl, will include a close, but not suffocating, approach. “That way we can begin to see not only how they utilize these referrals and these resources but also to follow up and see, what did they get help on, and what do they still need some assistance on?” she said.

“We’re going to open the door for them to be able to get this assistance, but we’re also not hand-holding them through the process. We’re making sure that they take the initiative to go get that help.”

Once that is done, said Rahl, follow-up meetings will commence and an addict or family can hopefully be helped.

Rahl plays Turning Point’s most direct role as the person who meets with addicts and their family to help find the care they need. She has served as director of Project Access, a free service in Howard County that helps clients navigate the complexities of the healthcare system, but relinquished the role upon Turning Point’s opening.

In general, the SOC is a collaborative effort among numerous fields – medical, mental health, faith-based and more – to fight the drug epidemic and its many causes and effects.

Credited by Rahl with helping to facilitate early treatment opportunities were subcommittees formed during the program’s planning phase. The subcommittees, represented by associated leaders, are: mental health and addiction, youth and family peer support, prevention, community support and engagement, and finance sustainability.

The first patient, she said, was sent to Turning Point by a Howard County probation officer.

“I can see already that the army is out there to refer, and now that the door is open it's going to begin to flood,” noted Rahl.

Jennifer Johnson, Howard County’s SOC coordinator, was no less optimistic.

“I think eventually it’s going to reduce (local addiction). … Along with what the community has already been doing, we’re just another entity of that,” she said.

“We’ve got to realize that it’s not just a matter of getting people into services, but it’s ongoing. We’ve got to educate them on treatment, you’ve got to educate them on reducing the stigma of addiction.” 

Johnson added that program officials will work on “not duplicating services, because we don’t want to recreate the wheel. … If we see a gap that needs to be filled, then we’re going to create something to fill that gap.”

The main critique of Turning Point in recent months has been whether it will in fact be a duplicative referral service. One critic, Howard Superior Court 2 Judge William Menges, said previously that the SOC mostly duplicates services already provided by probation and 2-1-1 United Way of Howard County.

“The whole thing is being ramrodded into operation without any pre-planning or pre-preparation being done. That creates a potential for huge problems,” said Menges. His critiques have been widely disputed by Wyman and others associated with Turning Point.

Nonetheless, local officials are hopeful the start of Turning Point will build upon the brief improvement seen during the year’s first quarter.

Howard County experienced five confirmed overdose deaths From Jan. 1 to March 31, a major drop from the same time period last year and a ray of hope for a community coming off its worst year for drug overdoses in county history.

Notably, a report distributed April 17 by Howard County Coroner Steven Seele said that none of the five overdose fatalities included opiates. In comparison, he counted 15 overdose deaths in last year’s first quarter, 10 of which included opiate-related drugs like heroin or Fentanyl.

In total, 2017 saw a year-end count of 44 drug overdose deaths, making it by far the deadliest year for overdoses in Howard County history, surpassing the previous high of 34 in 2015.

“Is [Turning Point] going to solve the whole problem? Absolutely not, because this problem wasn’t created overnight,” said Wyman during last week’s State of the County address.

“This problem was created over years on the opioid side, but we’ve had substance abuse for a long, long time. So this is a piece of the puzzle.”