It’s common for people who have experienced the addiction of a loved one to want to help others. In 2018, the Pennsylvania Certification Board (PCB) the credentialing body for professionals in the behavioral and community health fields, created an opportunity for adults who have been directly impacted by another person’s substance use disorder to do…
Compass Mark’s dedicated teams work to fulfill the mission to prevent addiction through education, skill-building, and community mobilization. Lauren Krebs, Youth Leadership Advocate I haven’t been here long but I did get to witness Landis Run Intermediate School’s community service project day and it was great. The children started the day by handing out bracelets…
Compass Mark’s mission is to prevent addiction through education, skill-building, and community mobilization. On Monday, October 7th, Compass Mark hosted two of the original Freedom Writers, Tony Becerra, and Cynthia Ray, to share their stories with our community. The night was filled with messages of inspiration, empowerment, and resiliency. We celebrated both the 20th…
Strength comes in numbers. That’s the concept behind Lancaster County Joining Forces, a collection of organizations and individuals working to save lives and help neighbors who are struggling with addiction. This fall, as part of the fight against the opioid crisis, Joining Forces coordinated efforts among several organizations and coalitions to host a three-part educational…
People struggling with substance abuse were once, and sometimes still are, judged harshly. Today, we know addiction is a disease, just as cancer, diabetes and other common ailments are. The National Institute of Drug Abuse, respected institutions like the American Medical Association and studies published in notable publications all define addiction as a disease. According…
“Fentanyl overdose survivors require little if any hospital treatment.” Study that sentence carefully. It’s the headline of an article describing results of a recently published Canadian study. Further on, the article states, “75 per cent of the fentanyl overdose patients were classified as “low-risk” upon arrival.” Compass Mark recognizes addiction as a medial disease; as…
The brain disease of addiction was described way back in the 1700’s by Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Philadelphia. It was declared a disease by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1965. Modern brain research gets better all of the time, and has identified how four parts of the…
Working in the helping professions isn’t easy. Doing so during an addiction epidemic is harder still. If hope doesn’t prevail, we cannot continue. Interventions for addiction fall along a continuum- from health promotion and prevention to treatment and finally, long-term support for recovery. We’d like to share hope today, and we find it at every…