COAST Update

By Sheila Murphy, COAST Administrator

In October 2018, the Ventura County Behavioral Health Department was notified that its application for the Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-based Program, federal funding provided by the U.S. Department of Justice to combat opioid misuse, had been granted. The amount of the award was $935,401, and just under the $1 million maximum. The three-year grant was the largest award of two California county grants in the category.

The COAST Program – County Opioid Abuse Suppression Taskforce – has worked to address opioid abuse in Ventura County exclusively during the past three years, though Behavioral Health has been working tirelessly on this effort when the Ventura County Rx Abuse & Heroin Workgroup was launched in early 2012 to tackle the newly-identified opioid crisis.

COAST has worked closely with our stakeholders – the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office, Ventura County Public Health and Ventura County EMS. With the creation of a Data Management Coordinator position earlier this year, COAST has been taking a deep dive on analyzing trends and targeted efforts to reduce local impacts.

The U.S. Department of Justice grant funding of COAST ended in October 2021, but the work, even more important during the past two years, continues, as a stand-alone program under the Substance Use Services division of Behavioral Health. The COAST Opioid Data Dashboard was developed to inform the public on important data such as opioid-related deaths over a five-year period (2016-2020), lives saved with naloxone (2014-2019), and prescriptions for opioids in the year 2018, among others. The Dashboard will be updated annually.

The emergence of fentanyl as the leading cause of overdose deaths, both in Ventura County and nationally, has taken the work of COAST to greater collaboration with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. We will continue to look for innovative ways to educate and inform residents of our county about the very real dangers of illicit drugs, and how they can keep themselves and their families safe and healthy. To learn more, www.coastventuracounty.org.