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Bernalillo County Opioid Accountability Initiative

The Bernalillo County Opioid Accountability Initiative is a multi-sectoral collective impact strategy to align the activities of governmental, non-profit, business, and community leaders to strengthen the prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement/criminal justice systems in Bernalillo County in order to reduce incidence of opioid overdose deaths.

History

March 2012 - September 2013
At the request of Bernalillo County Comissioner Maggie Hart Stebbins, the Opioid Accountability Initiative was convened by the Bernalillo County Community Health Council in 2012. The first activity of the Initiative was the planning of the first Opioid Accountability Summit, which took place in September 2013. With more than 150 organizational administrators, service providers, advocates, and policymakers in attendance, this successful summit served as a call-to-action for organizations involved in any way in preventing overdose deaths in Bernalillo County. At the end of the summit, participants submitted commitment forms, acknowledging their interest in and commitment to the charge of the Opioid Accountability Initiative. More than 50 different organizations have committed to reducing incidence of opioid overdose in Bernalillo County.

October 2013 - June 2014
After the first summit, four implementation teams were formed to begin addressing the recommendations developed prior to and during the summit. Three teams, focused on primary prevention, Narcan distribution, and treatment systems respectively, meet monthly to coordinate their work toward streamlining and improving systems. The fourth team, Law Enforcement/Criminal Justice, began by addressing concerns by working directly within systems and did not meet as a full group regularly until the fall of 2014.

July 2014 - December 2014
An Opioid Accountability Initiative update meeting was held in June 2014, during which the co-chairs of each of the Implementation Teams presented on their progress toward the recommendations, challenges and barriers faced, and a call to action for others to become more deeply involved in the initiative.

The Prevention, Treatment, Narcan  and Law Enforcement/Criminal Justice Implementation Teams meet monthly, working toward implementation of each team's respective recommendations. 

On September 9, 2014, Bernalillo County Community Health Council Coordinator, Marsha McMurray-Avila accepted a proclamation by the Bernalillo County Commission, on behalf of the Opioid Accountability Initiative. This proclamation acknowledged International Overdose Awareness Day and the continued efforts of the Opioid Accountability Implementation Teams in reducing opioid overdose deaths in Bernalillo County. Other members of the Opioid Accountability Initiative Implementation Teams were also on hand to receive the award.


January 2015 - present
The second Opioid Accountability Summit was held on January 8, 2015, during which teams discussed on-going barriers to meeting the goals of the Initiative, seeking continued support from community leaders, service providers, law enforcement, and policymakers.

Organizing Documents
Timeline and Team Structure
Recommendations

Interested in becoming involved?
For more information or to learn how to get involved with the Bernalillo County Opioid Accountability Initiative, please contact Dr. Bill Wiese at bill-wiese@comcast.net, Dr. Harris Silver at hsilver30@comcast.net or Marsha McMurray-Avila at mcavila.bcchc@comcast.net

Resources
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