In an effort to shed light on what’s really happening at the county level, Bluegrass Regional Prevention Center (Bluegrass.org) is working to learn more about substance abuse and suicide in Boyle County.
Laura Cooper, prevention specialist for Bluegrass.org for Anderson, Boyle, Garrard, Jessamine, Lincoln and Mercer counties, said the goal is to gather as much qualitative information from focus groups, and from personal interviews with individuals who are directly impacted, or have been, by substance abuse.
Cooper said other Bluegrass Regional Prevention centers are working on similar plans across the state and are working with the Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities throughout the construction of their plans.
Cooper plans to compile the Boyle County interviews and focus group data with the statistics for the county, to highlight what is really needed, which will then be released in a one- to two-page fact sheet summing up the information.