A Resource for Healthcare and Social Services Professionals
September 8, 2021
1:00 pm–3:00 pm ET
This training will review the current scope of the addiction epidemic in Massachusetts with a focus on Hampden County.
Via Zoom
This training will review the current scope of the addiction epidemic in Massachusetts with a focus on Hampden County. It will further explore practical strategies to address the public health dangers associated with substance use disorders at the community level and ways to implement them successfully. The training aims to provide community stakeholders with actionable items for implementation to address the growing concerns of overdose and infection risk associated with polysubstance use.
This training will be held via Zoom. We would prefer that you log in using a device with a webcam so that we can all connect to each other via video. Please note that signing on with video is required to receive CEs. If you do not have access to a webcam, please let us know.
Continuing education credits are pending approval.
Law enforcement and first responders, social workers, nurses, clinical staff and non-clinicians, outreach, community health workers, and allies. This training is open to anyone but the content will specifically focus on Massachusetts communities.
Justin is a Clinical Nurse Educator for Boston Medical Center's OBAT TTA team, with specific expertise in infectious disease and their co-occurrence with substance use disorders, community outreach, and harm reduction. He serves as an expert on OBAT TTA's SUD Care Continuum ECHO team and sits on the item writing committee for the Addictions Nursing Certification Board. Justin has dedicated his career to caring for patients living with HIV/AIDS and suffering from substance use disorders across the continuum of care. He is an AIDS Certified Registered Nurse, a Certified Addictions Registered Nurse, and a member of the Gamma Epsilon Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau. Justin received his BSN from Northeastern University in 2013 and received his MSN, with a focus in nursing education, from the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in 2020.
Peter Babineau, LADCPeter is the Senior Regional Manager for Learn to Cope (LTC) in Western Massachusetts. He is a person in long-term recovery and the dad of a young man affected by substance use in his life. Previously, Peter worked as a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Addiction Counselor and Substance Use Educator, and curriculum supervisor. Peter considers himself to be a Harm Reduction advocate and activist as well as an ally to people who use drugs, those in recovery, and those of us that love them. He honors all pathways of recovery and works to educate people on the negative effects of stigmatizing and marginalizing language. After working in the direct service world for over 25 years, Peter retired and joined LTC as a regional manager in 2017 overseeing the 3 chapters in Greenfield, Pittsfield, and Holyoke. Since then, despite temporarily combining those groups into a single regional virtual group, LTC has added 2 groups which include Still Learning, Still Coping, and LTC en Español both of which are under the umbrella of the Western Massachusetts LTC region and supported by Peter, and his colleague Magda Colon.
Richard M. JohnsonMr. Johnson began his work with Northern Educational Service where for over a decade he held several positions; beginning as an Assistant HIV Client Services Case Manager and then a Relapse Prevention Case Manager to those recovering from substance use. Having received extensive training in these areas over a five year period, Mr. Johnson was next elevated to Senior HIV Client Service Case Manager. While in this role, Mr. Johnson was elected as co-chairperson of the Springfield Ryan White HIV Consortia, Chairperson of the Greater Springfield AIDS Awareness Committee, and Co-chairperson of the Massachusetts Planning and Prevention Group. Mr. Johnson served as Program Director of HIV Client Services and HIV Counseling and Testing at Northern Educational Services for two years prior to transitioning to New North Citizens Council’ Inc. in the role of Program Director for its Prevention and Education, Integrated Counseling Testing and Referral programs as well as its Naloxone Education/distribution program.
Mr. Johnson holds a Bachelor of Science Degree with a concentration in Human Services. He earned his Master’s Degree in Leadership and Management and is a Massachusetts Certified Problem Gambling Specialist, Overdose Prevention Master Trainer & Harm Reductionist.
Mr. Johnson currently serves on several State, Regional, and Local Planning and Advisory Committees and Boards such as the Mason Square C-3 Initiative, Greater Spfld Opioid Overdose Committee, the Massachusetts Integrated Planning Prevention Committee, Bay State Health’s Mason Square Neighborhood Health Centers Community Advisory Board.
Nellie MaldonadoNellie Maldonado has dedicated her life to working in human services with local high-risk demographics. For the last 25 years, she has been with Tapestry. Presently, Nellie is the Assistant Director for Program Administration, but she is no stranger to the front lines. Holding previous positions as a bi-lingual Reproductive Health Counselor, a Clinical Services Coordinator, and a Harm Reduction Manager.
Nellie has uniquely approached the objective of meeting human needs through an interdisciplinary knowledge base, focusing on prevention as well as remediation of problems, and maintaining a commitment to improving the overall quality of life of service populations. This includes work that prevents the spread of HIV among injection drug users and providing overdose prevention education, risk reduction counseling, and Narcan access and trainings to reduce fatal overdoses.
She is a tireless advocate for the people she works with; sitting on the Mayor’s Task Force in Holyoke, being actively involved in several community coalitions, and collaborating with other health and human service providers for better, more comprehensive services for her clients. She is involved in the grant writing process and has been to Beacon Hill. Where she informed legislators about the lifesaving work happening at Tapestry and advocated for additional funds to continue providing the services that are so critical for community health and well-being.
Nellie is well regarded in her field, one of her most impressive achievements was the initiating of the first Latino AIDS Awareness activities, focusing on the effects of HIV and AIDS in the Latino communities of Holyoke and Springfield.
Nellie has received multiple awards and recognitions: the Clara Temple Leonard award from the Human Service Forum, which honors a direct care employee who has worked in a nonprofit or public human service organization in direct care and has profoundly impacted and improved the lives of those he or she serves. She has also been awarded the Sarah Levine Award, for her contributions to reproductive freedoms.
Nellie is not only an asset to Tapestry, but to the many community residents whose lives have been touched by her.
Jeff RudinskiSergeant Jeff Rudinski has been in Law Enforcement for 28 years, serving the last 21 years with Wilbraham PD. Sgt Rudinski served as a full-time School Resource Officer, DARE Officer, and Lifeskills instructor for 7 years. In this capacity, Sgt Rudinski became involved in social media and online investigations. Sgt Rudinski created and taught social media and online safety for many years while also becoming a member of the Massachusetts Internet Crimes Against Children task force (ICAC) where he investigated and assisted in many child exploitation cases throughout the United States. Sgt Rudinski served as a detective for 2 years prior to being promoted in 2015. In 2017, he was approached by Mercy Medical Centers Pathways to Care and became involved in opioid addiction outreach. In 2019 Wilbraham PD joined the Hampshire Hopes DART program. Sgt Rudinski currently supervises WPD’s DART team and serves in a leadership and technical assistance role with DART. Sgt Rudinski is married and has a daughter entering her junior year in high school.
Bill Soares, MD, MSDr. Bill Soares is the Director of Harm Reduction Services in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Baystate Medical Center. He is a practicing emergency physician and researcher, with a focus on expanding medication treatments for patients with opioid use disorder. In his role as Director of Harm Reduction Services, Dr. Soares oversees take-home Narcan, harm reduction supply distribution, and buprenorphine induction programs throughout the four emergency departments in the Baystate Health System.
Liz Whynott, MPHLiz Whynott is the Director of Harm Reduction at Tapestry and joined the agency in 2008. She oversees agency and community efforts throughout Western MA to provide needed services to people who inject drugs and people who engage in high-risk sexual behaviors. Liz received her Master’s in Public Health from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2009 and she is a member of several local and state-wide coalitions related to syringe access, overdose prevention, access to Hepatitis C treatment, and decreasing the stigma of drug use in health care settings.
Participants will be able to:
Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (BSAS)
Grayken Center for Addiction TTA is a program of Boston Medical Center (BMC), a 514-bed academic medical center located in Boston's historic South End and the largest safety-net hospital in New England.
The content on this site and the content presented by Grayken Center for Addiction TTA is intended solely to inform and educate healthcare and social service professionals, and shall not be used for medical advice and is not a substitute for the advice or treatment of a qualified medical professional. The hospital, the program, and the contributors are not acting as health care providers or professional consultants on behalf of any specific patient and disclaim establishing a provider-patient relationship with any specific patient.