Commentary: Reaching Homeless Students Impacted by Heroin and Rx Drug Abuse

Reading newspaper clips from across southern and eastern Kentucky is part of my daily morning routine. Over the last 15 years or so, every aspect of the drug abuse epidemic has been detailed – from the overwhelming rate of prescription drug overdose deaths, to shutting down rogue pill mills, to the need for more treatment facilities. The impact of drug abuse in our communities is so multi-faceted that its impact is, at times, difficult to track. Last August, as I turned the pages of one of our state newspapers, I was introduced to a young man who shared his difficult journey to high school graduation as a homeless student. Reading further, I learned his story is not unique in Kentucky or nationwide.

In fact, the U.S. Department of Education recently reported the number of students who had experienced homelessness skyrocketed to 1.2 million children across the country in the 2012-13 school year – an 85 percent increase since 2006-07. Unfortunately, my home state of Kentucky has the most homeless students in the country, according to the Lexington Herald Leader’s analysis. More specifically, the paper reported that in five Eastern Kentucky counties in my Congressional district, more than one in five students are considered homeless by school districts.

It’s incomprehensible that one in five students are living homeless in some of our communities. While there are a number of factors to consider when trying muster up a reason as to how this could happen, one that routinely stands out, is the high rate of addiction. Our students are too often orphaned by parents who have overdosed or been incarcerated for drug-related crimes. School officials have said that those without an extended family support system are now “couch surfing” with friends, and their school attendance and academic work are suffering.

We’ve lost nearly an entire generation over the last decade to prescription drug overdose deaths in Eastern Kentucky. Now, it’s their children who are hanging in the balance – and we must focus on how we can reach them. And with heroin abuse on the rise, we face a new battle in the race to identify and help those students in need.

In Eastern Kentucky, education is part of a three-pronged approach utilized by Operation UNITE, a non-profit organization that has grown as a national model for its holistic approach to curb the tide of addiction through law enforcement, treatment and education.

In hopes of helping other communities implement similar successful programming, UNITE has taken its mission to the national stage through the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit. For the first time, the summit will highlight heroin use and its correlation to prescription drug abuse. In fact, studies show that the 63 percent rise in heroin use over the last decade mirrors the increase in opioid abuse. Some states are now on pace to record one heroin-related death per day.

The fifth annual National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit will be held March 28-31, 2016, at the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. I invite you to join us for the largest national collaboration of professionals seeking to address heroin and Rx drug abuse, misuse and diversion. Each year, attendance records are broken as folks from every state, and even a few outlying countries, attend the summit to share their passion, resources and expertise for the sake of saving lives. We need to show up in full force again this year with a powerful unified mission to reach those homeless students and the countless others who are suffering from addiction in their families, schools and communities.

When you have 2,000 national, state and community leaders collaborating across professional and societal sectors, effective policies, programs and legislation begin to take shape. This year, some of the keynote speakers include: U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, ONDCP Director Michael Botticelli, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Dr. Stephen Ostroff, Acting Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Chuck Rosenberg, National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow, and several members of Congress.

The agenda features breakout sessions organized into ten educational tracks tailored to provide stakeholders timely and relevant information for their particular field – Clinical, Advocacy, Federal Government, Heroin, Law Enforcement, Pharmacy, Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, Prevention, Third-Party Payers, and Treatment.

For information about the Summit, visit www.NationalRxDrugAbuseSummit.org, or follow news about the event at Twitter.com/RxSummit or Facebook.com/RxSummit. Questions may be directed to Cheryl Keaton at 606-657-3218 or ckeaton@centertech.com.

U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers (KY-05)

Co-Founder of the Congressional Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse

Source: Lexington Herald Leader: August 29, 2015 edition: School of hardest knocks: Kentucky has more than 30,000 homeless students