News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
DeKalb County Commissioners approved the additional funding of four anti-drug programs during their Monday meeting.
The funds will be split between the local sheriff’s DARE program, the Youth and Family Resource Network, the DeKalb Prevention Coalition, and the Recovery Court Program. County Mayor Matt Adcock said the funding requests totaled just over $145,000.
“The state joined a settlement, this is a lawsuit more or less, for several different opioid companies and each county was allotted so much money that signed up to be a part of that settlement,” Adcock said. “So this is the funds that we have been given by the state from that settlement.”
Adcock said the total funds the county received from the settlement are around $220,000. He said the majority of the funds are restricted for use with the purpose of defending against the opioid epidemic sweeping across the nation.
“They work together on getting people out of jail, in recovery, and back on the streets as a citizen,” Adcock said.
Adcock said the services receiving funding include educational materials for kids and parents, a mentor program for troubled teens, and a legal program that encourages recovery.
“This is sometimes put together with their jail sentence, and sometimes it’s not,” Adcock said. “But what it’s designed to do is to get somebody from being addicted to drugs to finding that recovery. And it’s like a 12-month program. And, you know, they’ll graduate and they get all these awesome mentors.”
