By Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

As the opioid crisis rages on, students at Lethbridge College learning about addictions services

Nov 15, 2017 | 1:02 PM

LETHBRIDGE – With the opioid epedemic continuing to be an issue in Lethbridge and across North America, Lethbridge College has joined other local organizations in educating about addiction prevention, support and treatment.

That was the main focus of “The Opposite of Addiction is Connection Health Resource Fair” held on Wednesday.

Part of national Addictions Awareness Week, the fair brought in 10 external community agencies to join six on-campus groups to provide information to students and community members about topics such as harm reduction, prevention, treatment, supports and more.

Kara-Lyn Fredrickson, an Addictions Counselling fourth year practicum student and the event organizer says the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s connection.

“That’s what we really wanted to focus on for this resource fair, how we have many groups both at the college and in the community working in a variety of ways to tackle addiction at its root causes, with an emphasis on prevention instead of just on treatment,” Fredrickson added.

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One of the breakout sessions put on by the college Wednesday was an overdose prevention and naloxone training session.

This training was provided by ARCHES Lethbridge, and gave participants the skills needed to identify an opioid overdose and respond in an emergency situation.

Lethbridge College is unable to provide naloxone kits on campus, but anyone who’s participated in the training and passed will be given a certificate they can take to ARCHES to get a kit.

Registered Nurse Sophia Butler works at ARCHES, and was on hand to teach the classroom full of students about harm reduction and administering naloxone.

In Butler’s presentation, she showed a slide comparing the way people think about someone who’s drowning compared to someone who’s overdosing.

“People will say, well it’s their own fault they did take the drugs afterall,” Butler told the students.

The message was: if you saw someone drowning, you wouldn’t think twice about throwing them a floatation device to save them. So why wouldn’t you give someone who was overdosing naloxone if you had the chance to save them?

ARCHES wants to get people to view addiction as a health, and especially mental health, issue.

Information about the number of overdoses, and whether drug use at the college is an issue, wasn’t available.

College officials say the training and awareness is more of a service to the overall community in Lethbridge than anything else.

The focus on addictions aligns with the college’s pledge to provide mental health resources to students, a commitment which was bolstered by the province’s recent $220,000 annual investment in mental health funding.

Lethbridge College Health Promotion coordinator Harmoni Jones says they’re fortunate to have such involved and passionate community partners.

“They help to ensure that events like this are possible,” she continued. “This is a way to strengthen those partnerships even further, which will help to make our community stronger.”

Some of the college’s partners that attended the fair include ACT Medical Centres, Alberta Health Services, ARCHES, Canadian Blood Services, Streets Alive Mission and YWCA Lethbridge and District.