The community will have an opportunity to weigh in on the heroin and opioid epidemic during a community engagement session on Saturday, June 9, hosted by the City-County Heroin, Opioid and Cocaine Task Force.
The Task Force will host this community engagement session on June 9 from 12:30 – 3:00 p.m. at Klieger Auditorium in St. Joseph Hospital, 5000 W. Chambers. All youth (16+), adults, residents and medical professionals are welcome to attend the session and become a part of the conversation. It is encouraged that community members share how drugs have and continue to impact their neighborhood. This will allow community members to work with the task force to create new strategies to address substance abuse. The meeting will also include design thinking activities and small group discussions to enhance the task force’s work plan.
The City-County Heroin, Opioid and Cocaine Task Force is looking to address the community impact of various drugs. The task force understands that various drugs impact communities differently and is seeking to address the community impact of substance abuse.
Alderman Michael J. Murphy, the primary sponsor of the Common Council legislation creating the task force, said Saturday’s session and two additional engagement sessions to be announced will help gather input before a final plan is adopted by the task force. “We are urging citizens to attend because this public input and information sharing is such a critical part of the task force’s work,” he said. “We need to hear from anyone who has ideas and input to share.”
Alderman Khalif J. Rainey, a member of the task force, said he believes community input at Saturday’s session (being held in the 7th Aldermanic District) will help the task force shape its final report.
“I am urging community members to help us fight back against this deadly scourge by attending the engagement session and lending their voices to the conversation,” Alderman Rainey said.
In late April, Task Force released its preliminary report that included initial recommendations to address the fatal and nonfatal overdose epidemic in Milwaukee and Milwaukee County. These recommendations included the development of programs that are in collaboration with the criminal justice system that treat addiction as a disease, while actively working to reduce the availability of illicit substances, to ensure that there is adequate access to timely, affordable and quality services for those people with substance disorders and to enhance collaboration between community-based initiatives and government agencies.
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