Partnership with college would aid addiction sufferers in Mount Kisco, Westchester County

By MARTIN WILBUR

Village officials are exploring a partnership with a Westchester Community College program where an addiction studies intern would follow up with defendants suffering from drug and alcohol abuse who appear in municipal court for violations.

Trustee Tom Luzio said he and Trustee Tammy Brown contacted professor Richard Adamson, curriculum chair of WCC’s addiction studies, to consider whether the college’s program could provide an intern to help with interventions or other steps for those with drug and alcohol problems that are charged with low-level offenses. The village has been searching for ways to curb quality-of-life challenges such as public drinking, intoxication and vagrancy that residents have repeatedly brought to officials’ attention.

Bi-lingual counselor

The village has sought other avenues as well, such as finding a second Spanish-speaking counselor at the Lexington Center for Recovery, Luzio said. Local officials have also spoken to the district attorney’s office about treatment programs if someone has been charged with an offense and have lobbied for the chief judge of the courts that send defendants to diversion programs to send a counselor to the Mount Kisco Justice Court. 

“It’s a hard thing for our judges when you’re talking about violations, not crimes, to do anything but require individuals to get help,” Luzio said.

Adamson said addiction studies can send a student intern enrolled in the college’s degree program who is working toward a career in helping individuals plagued with addiction to get hands-on experience in the field. Connecting a municipality with hospitals and other recovery programs can also be tried. He suggested that Mount Kisco can select staff members to be trained to help provide the interventions. Any county or state employee who enrolls in the program would get in for free, Adamson said.

“One of the things I discussed with them, one of the best ways to combat a problem, particularly with addiction, public intoxication, some have shared concerns about the immigrant population and drug use, is to get staff trained,” said Adamson, who worked as a substance abuse counselor for 27 years. “When you get staff trained, you get a community trained and then they work together.”

Group has helped

WCC has helped Yonkers as well as school districts in Westchester and Putnam counties, he said. Adamson noted that training is essential because the face of addiction has changed. Due to technology, people have more advanced ways of obtaining illegal drugs that are out of sight. Also, most people can’t recognize when someone is in the midst of an overdose without training.

“The average person thinks that an overdose is when somebody faints,” Adamson said. “A person can be in a state of overdose and actually talking to you.”

Interventions would typically include a substance abuse counselor, sometimes a social worker, a nurse or nurse practitioner or another health professional to assess someone’s condition and a mental health worker.

One person who went through the training is Mount Kisco resident Judith Sage, who at the time was working at the county Probation Department. Sage said she enrolled in the counselor program and was assigned to field placements at two facilities in her second year, thinking about using it when she reached retirement.

Sage said she was impressed with the program and the courses offered, comparing it to graduate-level courses. That could be helpful to the village if it decides to pursue working with WCC.

“Since county employees go for free to the program, sending cops, county cops to the program, a couple of them, I could see having a community police officer finish that program,” she said. “That would be fantastic.”

Adamson said if the village decides to take the next step, he would make a presentation to the Village Board and the community to discuss what services can be offered and how it can help Mount Kisco. So far, the community’s first steps reveal that it is earnest in getting help for those in need.

“Mount Kisco appears to be fully proactive, and as a practitioner for 27 years in the field, that’s what it takes to address the problem, being proactive,” Adamson said. “Mount Kisco, to me, from what I understand, and what I’ve seen so far, is a community that’s willing to be fully proactive.”