the opioid epidemic continues to take the lives of people across our state and our country Many people end up in hospitals when they overdose which is where healthc care providers are able to help connect survivors to resources While a team of medical professionals at RWJ Barnabas Health an underwriter of NJ Spotlight News is going beyond the usual prevention methods to create harm reduction kits that can be handed out to those in need Raven Santana has more on what'll be included About 15 years ago I overdosed um on heroin I was in the hospital for my own personal overdose There was no peer recovery program in place Um you were medically cleared for discharge and that was it Amy Franco says her near-death experience fuels her passion to support others battling addiction She's part of a dedicated team from RWJ Barnabis Health and underwriter of NJ Spotlight News Institute for Prevention and Recovery working to assemble 15,000 nlloxxone and harm reduction kits The initiative offers recovery and support services to individuals with substance use disorders across hospitals outpatient facilities and community settings We definitely see overdoses in our emergency rooms every day We initially started providing uh nlloxxone from the recovery specialist for just nlloxxone overdose patients So in the few hundreds but during this process we recognized that number one um just having the nlloxxone wasn't enough They needed a place to hold it They needed some extra care items So we came up with the idea to start uh care kits along with the nlloxxone So we have xylazine strips we have gloves we have um some care items like uh seasonal items like socks and um mouthwash and some other just items that people might need to take care of themselves Gina Botchi director of the Institute for Prevention and Recovery leads one of the nation's largest inhosp peer recovery programs The initiative builds on statewide efforts to increase access to the overdose reversal medication Nlloxxone According to Botchi the program's mission is to create a pathway towards recovery Eliminating some of those steps in between It's helped eliminate that stigma Right You don't have to ask for this You don't have to go somewhere You don't have to hand a prescription to a pharmacist You don't have to worry about paying for it right You don't have to worry about transportation Team members here say the goal is to get these kids to as many people as possible aiming to bridge the gap to recovery And harm reduction is the path right now right It's we're client- centered Who are we to tell somebody to stop using But if you're going to continue using you might as well do it in a safe manner I was actually a working professional um educated um and put on a suit and tie every day and fooled a lot of people for a lot of years and uh you know we're out there you know and we're struggling and we're trying to put on our best face but inside um a lot's going on Patrick Connelly manager of the peer recovery program says harm reduction efforts such as expanding access to nlloxxone have played a key role in reducing drugrelated deaths in New Jersey and across the country It's it's probably the I would say probably one of the easiest life-saving things that exist Um you know to to be able to help somebody right where they're at and bring them back uh to a place where then they can seek you know they can have the proper medical attention provided to them It gives them that little bit of space to you know still be with us Connelly says once all 15,000 life-saving kits are assembled they will be distributed to patients at every RWJ Barnabas Health Hospital on June 23rd For NJ Spotlight News I'm Raven Santana