Laconia follows Safe Station model in fire dept., Navigating Recovery partnership

LACONIA — For several years, the Laconia Fire Department has used the services of Navigating Recovery of the Lakes Region to connect recovery coaches those wanting treatment for addiction.

Fire Chief Kirk Beattie said his department just does not have the staff to support Safe Station.

Those recovery coaches assess the individual, whether that means hospitalization is warranted or the need for rehab, he said.

“This model we have been using works very well,” Beattie said.

He also said the fire department works closely with the police department which in 2014 decided to focus on recovery and treatment instead of arresting people struggling with addiction. 

Officer Eric Adams became its prevention, enforcement and treatment coordinator and monitors overdose calls.  Adams goes to the call to talk to the individual because that is the time when a person is most likely to be persuaded to seek treatment.

As overdose calls increased, Fire Lt. Brian Keyfe, who is a trained recovery coach, began doing the same work. The department received about $4,000 in federal funds from NH Project FIRST, which they used to train other firefighters as recovery coaches to cover all shifts.

It means that when an ambulance and fire truck are sent out on an overdose call, one of the four firefighters arriving on the scene is a recovery coach who can talk to the revived patient and hopefully get him to agree to treatment.

Keyfe has his regular firefighter duties but has a fire department issued cell phone so people needing help can call him at any time. The department's three ambulances carry his business card with his contact information on them so responders can provide it to patients.  Besides the contact information, the card states, "Your Life Matters."

The emergency responders are also connecting with groups in the city, such as the Community Recovery Center, where Keyfe serves as vice-chairman. Adams sits on the board of the Lakes Region Partnership for Public Health and Partners in Community Wellness, he said. 

“We have a seat at the table in the community,” he said.  “They get insight from us as to what we are seeing — boots on the ground— responding to these overdoses.  And we benefit from them by being embedded in the community and their recovery efforts. It’s an all-hands-on-deck approach.”

From 2016 to 2017, because of the work Adams and Keyfe do and additional services being offered in the Lakes Region, Keyfe said overdoses dropped from about 12 in 2016 to 5 in 2017.

The number of people being administered Narcan was cut in half between 2016 and 2017, he said. 

“Our numbers are way down with the community effort,” he said. 

When they started handing out the Narcan kits, there were a lot of questions about whether that would enable someone’s drug addiction. 

He said the kits have to be replaced every year and that he has not seen where they have been repeatedly used.   

One mother, he said, had used it to revive her son.  “If she didn’t have it, I’d say she wouldn’t have a son,” he said.  The son went into recovery and is doing well.

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This story was produced by The Granite State News Collaborative as part of its Granite Solutions reporting project. For more information visit collaborativenh.org. Follow us on Twitter @NewsGranite and like us on Facebook @collaborativenh