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Committee backs recommendation to seek opioid-recovery funds for fire-rescue outreach and youth prevention partnership
Summary
Fire Rescue and Lowcountry Alliance presenters described an outreach and recovery navigation program—linkage within 24–72 hours of overdose, peer support plus EMS liaison, Narcan distribution and treatment navigation—and the committee voted to forward a resolution authorizing application for South Carolina Opioid Recovery Fund dollars to full council.
Town staff and partners asked the committee to recommend a resolution and MOA authorizing the town manager to apply for and distribute South Carolina Opioid Recovery Fund (SCORF) allocations. Battalion Chief Peter Genura (presenter) said Hilton Head has about 331,865 allocated to date and described the proposed outreach program: responders will flag overdose cases through QA/QI and field referrals, then a paired team (peer support specialist and EMS lieutenant) will reach out to survivors within a 24–72 hour window to offer Narcan training, distribute kits and actively link people to treatment and recovery resources.
Genura emphasized the program's dual prevention-and-response approach and cited national and out-of-state examples of similar outreach models showing reduced repeat overdoses and increased treatment engagement. "We're gonna reach out to the individual ... within 24 to 72 hours. This is the critical window," he said. Presenters proposed startup funding to buy a vehicle, equipment and support two staff positions; the committee moved and seconded a recommendation to the full town council and heard one brief supportive public comment urging better disaggregation of resident vs. visitor incident data before broader evaluation.
