As Georgia navigates a widespread opioid dependancy disaster, researchers in Kennesaw State College’s Wellstar College of Nursing (WSON) are leveraging a $1.2 million grant to coach budding nurses in addressing substance use issues.
The researchers – Katherine Barnett, Susan Beidler, Ashley Barber and Lisa Reyes-Walsh – obtained the grant from the Georgia Opioid Disaster Abatement Belief (GOCAT) for his or her two-year undertaking, “Nurses Studying About Opioid Use Dysfunction,” or Nurses LOUD.
The grant was made potential following a $636 million settlement reached with three pharmaceutical firms for his or her complicity in fostering the opioid abuse epidemic. In Could 2023, Gov. Brian Kemp established the Georgia Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, an eight-member committee that can advise GOCAT on the disbursement of funds. The primary group of grantees, together with two KSU initiatives, was introduced in December 2024.
It is very thrilling for the nursing program to obtain this grant. With these funds devoted to our 4 priorities, we now have a novel alternative to make a significant influence on the lives of Georgians affected by the opioid disaster.”
Katherine Barnett
Barnett established a four-pillar plan that can practice nurses from KSU’s bachelor’s and grasp’s applications to assist sufferers coping with substance use issues:
- Integrating undergraduate curriculum with the graduate curriculum via experiential studying each on and off campus. It will embrace studying about methods to ease stigma and utilizing person-first restoration language, in addition to studying interviewing strategies with sufferers and listening to firsthand accounts of substance use dysfunction.
- Establishing an interdisciplinary crew mannequin between the Psychiatric Psychological Well being Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) post-graduate certificates college students and the Grasp of Social Work (MSW) college students to evaluate, diagnose, and deal with people with opioid use issues. Funding from this grant pays the wage for 2 professional advance follow nurses to work in the neighborhood. These neighborhood partnerships serve rural communities and people who’re oftentimes uninsured.
- Offering scholarships to twenty college students getting into the Psychiatric Psychological Well being Nurse Practitioner post-graduate certificates program and 30 Grasp of Social Work college students getting into the PMHNP and MSW applications between January 2025 and November 2026. These graduate college students will focus on caring for and treating people with substance use issues.
- Buying Naloxone to coach all undergraduate and graduate nursing college students in addition to all Grasp of Social Work college students within the Wellstar School.
Barnett and Beidler obtained a $729,000 grant from the Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Service Administration in 2022 to show graduate college students methods to assist sufferers break more and more lethal opioid addictions. Barnett mentioned work already accomplished underneath this federal grant helped WSON safe the most recent award from the state.
“The Wellstar School of Well being and Human Providers continues to be on the forefront of bettering public well being within the area, and this grant additional bolsters our efforts,” mentioned Monica Swahn, dean of the Wellstar School. “Our scholar nurses will enter their occupation with the talent and empathy crucial to assist alleviate the results of the opioid epidemic.”
Along with the 4 nursing researchers, affiliate professor of sociology Evelina Sterling obtained $240,000 from GOCAT to develop a neighborhood pushed undertaking to ease the results of opioid dependancy. The place Nurses LOUD fell underneath the “coaching” class of grantees, Sterling’s undertaking, “Making a Campus-Huge, Group-Led Ecosystem to Tackle the Opioid Epidemic in Georgia” is categorized as “prevention.”
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