The NORTH Star project aims to reduce overdose fatalities through increased overdose education training and saturation of naloxone across the state of Missouri.

NORTH Star is funded through the Missouri Department of Mental Health and Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services through the support of Opioid Settlement funds recently award in 2021. These funds have been provided to our team to help with coordinating a state wide “hub” for naloxone distribution across the state of Missouri.

This project focuses on the following objectives: 

1. Ensure community saturation of naloxone and fentanyl test strips across Missouri

2. Increase knowledge about overdose prevention, recognition, and response, including how to use naloxone

3. Decrease stigma toward people who use drugs through education of harm reduction

4. Create infrastructure and long-term sustainability of naloxone distribution networks

Goals of this project will be reached through the following activities:

Community Saturation of Naloxone Distribution

• Targeted and expanded community street outreach by people with lived experience to people who use drugs in the highest need areas

• Identifying new community sectors and points of distribution for naloxone including, but not limited to, jails, Children’s Division, health departments, hospitals, drop-in centers, recovery centers, and crisis response programs

• Increasing understanding of fatal and non-fatal overdoses to help inform distribution and outreach efforts through data-informed decision making 

• Expanding mail-based naloxone efforts to reach more rural communities 

Expansion of Overdose education training programs and resource information

• Expansion of OEND trainers with lived experience across the state who are able to provide training to community members and organizations

• Increasing OEND training completion by law enforcement and first responders, as well as targeted outreach to more first responder organizations and health departments

• Dissemination of resource guides and educational materials around harm reduction, treatment, and recovery resources to individuals and organizations

Providing technical assistance, infrastructure support, and capacity building to organizations

• Assisting new partnerships with development of protocols and practices to set up naloxone distribution and training programs

• Support existing partnerships with maintenance and expansion of current naloxone distribution efforts

• Developing new curriculum to meet the specific needs of organizations and community members in supporting people who use drugs

• Ensuring dissemination of evidence-based information around drug use, overdose risk, and harm reduction

• Develop plan for scaling and long-term support for ongoing statewide distribution efforts 

Please return soon for more information on these efforts!