PASCACK VALLEY AREA, N.J.—The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage New Jersey and its residents, especially first responders throughout the state facing the brunt of the physical and mental toll of the virus.
The exhaustion these workers face and how they can receive support will be the focus of an upcoming webinar being held by the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey and the Office of the New Jersey Coordinator of Addiction Responses and Enforcement Strategies (NJ CARES), which is responsible for overseeing addiction-fighting efforts across the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.
“Burnout on the Frontline: Managing COVID-19 Fatigue” will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 11, as part of the Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series.
The webinar examines the physical and mental fatigue experienced by frontline medical workers, law enforcement and recovery professionals and provide information on resources to help New Jersey residents get through this difficult time.
According to PDFNJ Executive Director Angelo Valente, “Nurses, doctors and other medical personnel have heroically cared for patients with COVID-19 during this past year, while law enforcement and recovery professionals have also faced additional rigors in carrying out their duty.”
Valente added, “The pandemic has exacerbated the opioid epidemic, and it is paramount that first responders receive the necessary help and care to address the physical, mental and emotional pain they face during this time.”
Speakers will include Kaitlin A. Caruso, acting director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs; Dr. Chantal Brazeau, chief wellness officer at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences; Robert Czepiel, assistant attorney general of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice and chief resiliency officer for the State of New Jersey; and Erika Shortway, director of Recovery Services for Morris County Prevention is Key’s Center for Addiction Recovery Education and Success (CARES).
The webinar will be the first event of 2021 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series and will serve as continuation in the collaboration between the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey and the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.
The organizations worked together on six webinars as part of the Knock Out Opioid Abuse Webinar Series, focusing of the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020.
Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day has been held in New Jersey on Oct. 6 each year since 2016. The statewide single-day initiative, organized by the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey and The Community Coalition for a Safe & Healthy Morris, in cooperation with the New Jersey Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, mobilizes the prevention and treatment communities, community leaders and concerned citizens to raise awareness of the potential for dependency on prescribed pain medicine and its link to heroin abuse rates in our state.
The initiative expanded to include a learning series in 2020, as a way to offer more educational and advocacy opportunities to New Jersey residents in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, nearly 3,000 people in New Jersey died from suspected drug overdoses, a vast majority of which involved some form of opioid. To learn more about the Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day and to register for the webinar, visit knockoutday.drugfreenj.org/about.