When invited to an event in Florence, Karen Jarvis-Vance packed up her traveling kit – pens, a stack of pamphlets and a tablecloth bearing the Northampton Prevention Coalition logo. She set up in the Elks Club, ready to pitch.
Across the room, an altar awaited the installation of officers. But that wasn’t the only business April 15. The club called Jarvis-Vance up to receive its citizen of the year award, honoring her 10-year fight, as founder of the coalition and director of health and safety for the Northampton public schools, to prevent substance abuse by teens.
That work includes leading the way statewide on one aspect of the state’s newest tool to combat opioid abuse. That measure, signed into law this spring by Gov. Charlie Baker, calls for schools to screen students for evidence of substance abuse.
Northampton was the first district in Massachusetts to screen students, serving as a pilot project with the state Department of Public Health. Jarvis-Vance testified before the Legislature on the bill and sits on a training team that will help school districts across the Bay State conform to the law.
And nationally, Jarvis-Vance, 47, has taken her message to meetings of the Anti-Drug Coalitions of America and to the National Association of School Nurses. Locally, she serves on the executive committee of Hampshire HOPE, a coalition of more than two dozen local groups ranging from health care to government to law enforcement.
“Where haven’t we been? It’s been quite a ride,” Jarvis-Vance said.
Michael Bardsley, a former guidance counselor at the high school and city councilor, told fellow Elks Club members last month he believes no one has done more than Jarvis-Vance to promote the well-being and safety of young people in Northampton.
As she looks ahead, particularly to a ballot question on full legalization of marijuana, Jarvis-Vance is rebuilding the coalition’s two-member staff following the departure Friday of its coordinator, Paul M. McNeil. He will become director of the Opioid Task Force for Franklin County and the North Quabbin.
As Jarvis-Vance works to fill McNeil’s post, she says she feels called to bring the coalition’s work to a larger audience, in light of mounting deaths from opioid overdoses – the very problem pulling her program’s coordinator away.
When the coalition began its work in 2007, it operated as a task force allied with the Strategic Planning Initiative for Families and Youth. Jarvis-Vance, a registered nurse within the school system, went after federal grants to solidify its work, tapping into the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997 and Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking, known as the STOP Act.
The coalition runs on a $175,000 annual budget with two staff members, McNeil, formerly, and Ananda Lennox. It reaches an estimated 4,000 students and families a year in Northampton. “We’re able to do a lot of work in the community,” Jarvis-Vance said.
At the outset, the coalition knew that abuse of prescription drugs posed a threat to public health, and made countering that a priority. “The opioid epidemic is nothing new, though the demographics are new, and the extent of it is greater,” Jarvis-Vance said.
For the last three years, in a program that influenced the new state law, Northampton students in grade nine have been screened for substance abuse issues; later this month, the screening will take place for the fourth time. Eighth-graders at the JFK Middle School have been screened in the last two years. The schools use an interview method to detect problems. “Early, so we can intervene before things become out of hand,” she said.
The system also offers the option of what Jarvis-Vance terms two “non-judgmental and confidential” conversations with students. These meetings are explained in letters home, a handbook and through outreach. To increase the scope of these efforts, officials also help local parents learn how to talk to their children about substance abuse.
Jarvis-Vance says work is underway to recruit a successor for McNeil, who she credits with building the program’s reach. “He really got out in the community. He’s so personable, he made a lot of connections, and we have more supporters” as a result.
McNeil, 34, calls his two years with the coalition “a short stint but a powerful stint. … We’ve just scratched the surface.”
He says he’s most proud of work to help parents learn how to talk about alcohol and other drugs in a meaningful and non-judgmental way with their children to improve the outlook for their health and well-being.
The coalition has worked with John Brelsford of Easthampton to train over 50 parents in a system called “motivational interviewing.” (Another free three-hour session will be held May 22 at 3 p.m. at the Northampton Survival Center. To sign up, contact Lennox by email at alennox@northampton-k12.us or call 587-1365.)
This technique emphasizes the use of open-ended questions, praise for healthy choices young people are already making and plain talk about drugs.
The next day, May 23, the program “Anatomy of a Party” will be held for parents, guardians and teens from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the NHS Cafe. A representative of the Northampton Police Department will talk about the social host law and “why good kids make bad decisions.” Food will be provided by Bueno Y Sano and State Street Deli. The first 30 to arrive will receive vouchers for free corsages and boutonnieres from Big Y for the prom.
The point isn’t to tell young people not to use drugs, but to open lines of communication, McNeil said. And to buy time.
“Delaying use is incredibly important,” McNeil said. “The longer you wait, the less likely marijuana will have a negative effect on your brain and behavior.”
It was local data on marijuana use that moved the coalition to act. A survey in 2015 determined that use of marijuana among 12th graders in Northampton at least once in the last 30 days was 70 percent higher than the national average. “We try not to be ‘nay-sayers,’” McNeil said. “We try to be ‘just-wait sayers.’”
That work isn’t related to the pending referendum question on marijuana legalization, but that vote does concern Jarvis-Vance. “We’re just really concerned about protecting that adolescent brain for as long as possible,” she said.
Once she hires a new coordinator, Jarvis-Vance says she will continue to devote time to helping Hampshire HOPE’s fight against prescription opioid drug abuse, one of the coalition’s targets, she said, “from the get-go.”
Another priority will be to work to keep young people from falling under the spell of opioids, in part by paying attention to times they are most vulnerable: when they are giving prescriptions related to sports injuries and oral surgery involving removal of wisdom teeth.
For Jarvis-Vance, that work puts her in near constant motion, hauling out her pamphlets and shaking hands. Two weeks ago, she was standing by her table at the Elks Club, only aware that Bardsley cited some sort of reason for the invitation.
“She was standing there talking to people,” recalled Jim Butcher, chairman of the Elks Club board.
When members found out why Jarvis-Vance was there – to receive the award – some wondered whether the issue of drug abuse is really so pressing.
“That’s not something that gets talked about in Northampton, and we pointed that out to them,” Butcher said. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t here.”