“Fairfax County Consolidated Community Funding Pool” granted to the Chris Atwood Foundation
Grant will allow Non-profit to expand efforts to provide life-saving medication to the community
For Immediate Release:
Reston VA, (July 17, 2018) - The Chris Atwood Foundation, a non-profit based in Reston, announced it received a grant of $77,707 from Fairfax County. This funding, which went into effect on July 1st, allows the organization to significantly expand its project ROPE (Reverse Overdose, Prevent and Educate). ROPE provides training in emergency overdose response, overdose prevention education, medication disposal pouches, and the overdose reversing medication called naloxone. This expansion will allow the program to reach additional Fairfax County residents thus improving residents’ health through services and resources to prevent prescription drug misuse, overdose, and overdose death.
Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death among persons under the age of 50, the greater - more rapidly increasing - cause of these deaths is opioid overdose, leading Virginia’s Health Commissioner to declare opioid overdose a public health emergency. The only antidote for a person who has overdosed on opioids is timely administration of naloxone (Narcan), a safe, effective medication that reverses the potentially deadly effects of any kind of prescription or illicit opioid. The CAF has been offering its ROPE program to residents of Virginia since 2015 and the program evaluation survey reported 106 individuals have revived someone as a result of the training and/or the naloxone provided. Due to the stigma associated with drug use, many overdose reversals go unreported, and as such, these survey results likely underestimate the true impact of these programs thus far.
In Virginia an estimated 1,133 persons died from opioid overdose in 2016, a radical increase from the 572 opioid-related deaths in 2012. In Fairfax country specifically, opioid overdose deaths in 2016 totaled 80. Unfortunately, it is probable that the numbers for 2017 will be significantly higher now that carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer that is being laced into heroin, cocaine, and pressed into counterfeit pills, has been identified in this area for the first time.
About Chris Atwood Foundation
The Chris Atwood Foundation is a 501(c)3 charitable organization that works to provide recovery support and resources to individuals and families affected by addiction; to change the conversation and policies about addiction from ones of stigma to support; and to prevent the disease from taking hold of future generations.
Press Contact:
Thechrisatwoodfoundation@gmail.com
Tel: 703-489-0402
P.O Box 9282 Reston, VA 20195
