New Directions chosen to manage Myrtle Beach’s $500k opioid treatment funding
The City of Myrtle Beach was granted $500,000 in state funding to address the local opioid epidemic, and it’s handing over those funds to a local nonprofit to manage.
New Directions of Horry County will be charged with managing that money to coordinate efforts of opioid treatment service providers, similar to its mission with regard to homeless assistance providers when the organization was created.
City officials, including Mayor Brenda Bethune and Police Chief Amy Prock, announced the funding and plan Friday morning at City Hall alongside state Reps. Russell Fry and Alan Clemmons, who Bethune credited with securing the funds within the state budget.
Horry County is consistently among the top three in the state for opioid-related deaths, including 105 overdose deaths in 2018, according to the most recent data available from the S.C. Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services.
Fry, who leads the S.C. House Opioid Study Committee, warned that overdoses are increasing currently due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has increased anxiety and unemployment.
Narcan administrations have increased about 32 percent March-May 2020 — from 237 interventions to 312 — compared to that same time period in 2019 in Horry County, according to data compiled by Horry County. Narcan is an opioid overdose reversal treatment.
Prock noted that society can’t arrest its way out of the opioid epidemic, and this new effort is a step forward that’s needed.
Bethune said a separate advisory board will be established with New Directions to manage the funds, and they were chosen because of their close relationship with the city and established structure.
Kathy Jenkins, executive director of New Directions, noted this isn’t a completely new endeavor for the organization as they’ve employed a peer support specialist for a few years, and he’s been able to build relationships with many organizations that provide addiction treatment services.
Jenkins said advisory board members will be chosen by her organization in coordination with the city, and they want to find people who are already involved in this effort so they can move forward as quickly as possible.
The program will be brought under New Direction’s umbrella, within its 501(c)(3) status, but managed as a separate entity from its homeless assistance program. Anyone donating to the organization will be able to specify where they want their donation to be spent, Jenkins added.
She said no decisions have been made about how to spend the money, though they’ll likely look to hire more peer support specialists.
New Directions was created about seven years ago to coordinate the efforts of all the city’s homeless assistance organizations, including all the homeless shelters, to increase the efficiency of delivering those services, and Jenkins said this will be a similar effort.
She acknowledged that there will likely be some intertwining between their homeless assistance and opioid treatment programs as some of their clients may need the help of a peer support specialist.
Though it hasn’t come up yet, Jenkins also confirmed they would accept someone working on recovery using medication-assisted treatment, such as Suboxone or methadone, into their shelter.
