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Ulster sheriff to offer assistance from mental health pros

May 13, 2021 6:00 am

Diane Pineiro-Zucker is reporting for the Daily Freeman Ulster County Sheriff Juan Figueroa May 12, announced that beginning next week, county residents that experience an overdose, and their families, will be offered 24-hour assistance from mental health professionals working for the Sheriff’s Office and for every law-enforcement agency in the county. He said police in Kingston, Saugerties, Woodstock, Lloyd and New Paltz [New PAUL-tz] already have signed on to the program. At a press conference scheduled for May 18, Figueroa will introduce the social worker and two peer advocates who have joined his office's Opioid Response as County Law Enforcement, or ORACLE, team. The salaries of the three new employees and an administrative assistant will be funded by a $900,000 three-year Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant and Substance Abuse Program grant administered by the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance. The county received the grant in November 2020. The program will initially focus on the city of Kingston where 40 percent of the county's overdoses occur. Figueroa emphasized that no one is going to get arrested. "...We’re going to get them help 'cause that’s what people want,” he said. “It’s a big day for us in Ulster County and in law enforcement," Figueroa said. "...There’s nobody else that’s doing what we’re doing, and to me, it’s special." Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.