SAFE Meetings

We held quarterly case review meetings at WCA Hospital and Olean General Hospital for our Sexual Abuse Forensic Examiner (SAFE) program and Jones Memorial Hospital’s quarterly SAFE review will be held soon. We currently have 11 medical providers trained and certified as SAFE providers and we recruited two medical providers who are completing their SAFE training. There continues to be a need for more SAFE providers. If you, or a provider you may know, want to make a difference and would like to help sexual assault survivors, please visit our Become a SAFE Provider webpage. It explains the program in detail, the benefit to survivors, training requirements and the benefits to SAFE providers.

STOPP Expands

The Department of Health has extended our contract for a second year to continue providing intranasal Narcan to first responders and the public. To date our Southern Tier Overdose Prevention Program (STOPP) has provided training to more than 420 individuals and 42 agencies. And recently, the state Legislature and Governor Cuomo amended Education Law and Public Health Law to allow school nurses to keep supplies of Narcan in schools and administer the drug to stop an overdose. We’re reaching out to the Department of Health to see if we can provide area schools with training and nasal Narcan kits. We attended a conference call with DOH officials to discuss the updated work plan. We shared with them some of our successes and sent information to other overdose prevention sites on the intra-nasal training atomizer we use during trainings. Many organizations were unaware that this very handy visual and practice aid is available. Once again, I’m proud that STHCS is able to offer our community this important, life-saving service.