Latest news with #HopeandHealing
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Grady County kicks off Opioid Abatement Program
Oklahoma Alliance for Recovery Resources and Grady County officials kicked off the county's Opioid Abatement Program Monday. OKARR is a nonprofit organization started in 2024 with the goal of providing grant writing and project management services and ensuring impactful projects are successfully funded and executed. The kick-off event, held at the Grady County Sheriff's Office, introduced the partners involved in the opioid abatement program and the services it will provide to the community. According to Suzanne Williams, executive director of OKARR, Grady County received $150,000 to be used over an 18-month period. The Oklahoma Opioid Abatement Grant is handled by the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office and provides funding for applications for treatment and recovery programs, assistance with occurring disorders and mental health issues, opioid abuse education and prevention, and more. Partners present at the kick-off event for the program, entitled Hope and Healing, include the Grady County Sheriff's Office, Verden Police Department, Ocarta and the District Attorney's Office. The opioid abatement grant and subsequent programs started in Grady County in December, according to Williams. 'So what does that bring to Grady County? It brings a task force to really focus on what is working, what's already being done in Grady County so it's not duplicative,' Williams said. 'What individuals need to be at the table.' The first Grady County task force meeting was held April 24 with community leaders from various organizations. During the task force meeting and other meetings leading up to applying for the grant, Williams said community members voiced the need for a sober living facility and Ocarta was selected as the nonprofit organization to run a Level 2 sober living facility for women and women with children. 'All of our houses are protected by the Federal Supreme Court ruling, meaning they're considered single-family dwellings. They don't have to go through a planning committee or get a permit or any of those types of things because they are single-family dwellings,' Williams said. 'Level 2 has a house manager and they're connected to resources, but most of those resources are already existing in the community.' Another need brought to OKARR's attention was school-based education on opioids in the Verden School District. Ninnekah Public Schools has also joined the education program since it started. Grady County Sheriff Gary Boggess said he is going to work on getting the education programs in every school in the county. The education is mainly for high school and middle school students but will also be offering a prescription education program over the summer geared towards parents. Williams said it will help teacher parents understand what opioids and other drugs look like, how to use narcan and other information to keep children safe. 'We do have a drug issue,' Boggess said. 'It's been coming across the borders for years and years and years. Yes, the borders are being shut down, but if you think that's gonna stop this, it's not. It's absolutely not.' The Grady County Undersheriff is on the Grady County Task Force, and Boggess said he will try to attend as many meetings as he can to help address the opioid issue in Grady County. 'I think this program will help us get some of the ones that you get started in it that we can get a hold of, try to help get them on the right path and get them the right education on this,' Boggess said. Managing Assistant District Attorney Jeff Siffers said he is not seeing as many drug crimes in drug court anymore because the statute has limited the 'amount of accessibility' based on trafficking and other specific exclusions. While optimistic about the program, he said he has concerns certain individuals who are repeat offenders and take advantage of the current services provided, that those individuals will do the same with the opioid abatement program services. He specifically mentioned transportation services being taken advantage of. 'Where I really would love to see this partnership go is finding the opportunity to restrict the amount of opportunities that young people have to become the parents that may have been the people that I've put in custody,' Siffers said. Verden Chief of Police Jason Cox said he equates the opioid issue in the area to mass casualty events in terms of training. For mass casualty events, officers are trained to end the threat, protect the victims and control the scene. 'That's how we kind of approached this, all hands on deck, in my town for opioid stuff,' Cox said. He said he has often received backlash for the department driving someone to Southeast Oklahoma for rehabilitation programs. This opioid abatement grant will help free up some of the funding and labor his department has been using to address opioid issues in Verden. 'Coming back to the crisis, you may not think it's a very urgent matter until you're squirting narcan up somebody's nose and they're blue,' he said. 'That seems urgent to me.' The county, municipalities and school districts are able to apply for another round of the Opioid Abatement Program in the coming weeks, Williams said. The deadline is June 11 for a three-year grant that could provide up to $450,000. For more information about OKARR or to provide input on what services could benefit Grady County in terms of the opioid crisis, visit
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Domestic violence services are in jeopardy, providers say
K.C., a stay-at-home mother in North Canton, Ohio, knew her husband had hidden multiple guns around their home. He never pointed the weapons at her, but he routinely invoked them to silence her during arguments. "I was always living in fear, walking on eggshells, having to do everything to make him happy and just not saying anything to upset him," said K.C., who asked to be identified only by her initials because of safety concerns. In 2023, days after her husband sexually assaulted her, K.C. said that she discovered a loaded pistol in the closet and two shotguns in the attic. With no family or friends to turn to, she started calling domestic violence shelters, eventually finding a room at the Hope and Healing Resource Center in Akron. "It literally was my saving grace," K.C. said. "If I didn't have Hope and Healing—a place to go, a place of refuge—I would be on the streets." Now, services like these are on the chopping block, a potential casualty of President Donald Trump's effort to shrink the federal government, The Trace reports. Domestic violence groups, already stretched thin, warn that looming cuts to federal grants, coupled with a dwindling federal workforce, are likely to gut resources for survivors seeking to escape abusers. After the Trump administration imposed a widespread pause on federal grants and loans in January, the Office of Violence Against Women, or OVW, abruptly scrubbed its website of grant opportunities and told organizations not to bother finalizing applications. OVW is one of the largest sources of federal grants to combat domestic abuse. Between 2021 and 2025, the office doled out $2.2 billion to support crisis hotlines, provide mental health counseling, and help survivors secure housing. Federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to resume funding to existing grantees, but the president has appealed those rulings, putting the program's future in limbo. "We may be able to breathe in this moment, but we're also holding our breath simultaneously," said Anastacia Snyder, the executive director of Catalyst, a domestic violence group in Northern California. "What this did was sow the seeds of fear and chaos into the fabric of our services." Adding to the uncertainty is the Republican spending package Congress passed in March. Pushed through with some Democratic support to avert a government shutdown, the package empowered the Trump administration to cancel or redirect federal dollars. Domestic violence groups are now bracing for the possibility that Trump will stop the OVW funding once the existing grants expire at the end of the fiscal year in September. "You have to reapply every year for those awards," said Jennifer Pollitt Hill, executive director of the Maryland Network Against Domestic Abuse. "Without those federal funds, most agencies will cease to exist entirely." The Justice Department, which oversees the OVW, declined to comment. Domestic violence groups say the funding uncertainty has them weighing layoffs, reduced hours, and shelter closures. Artika Roller, the executive director of Cornerstone Advocacy Service in Minnesota, said her group may have to close its shelter, displacing approximately 30 survivors. "If those services are not available for victims and survivors, then they may have to make decisions of staying with someone that is doing harm," she said. The turmoil coincides with a Trump administration push to establish a process for people with criminal convictions, including those for domestic abuse, to legally own guns again. Federal law bars gun ownership by people found guilty of felonies or certain misdemeanor domestic violence crimes. But a rule the Justice Department proposed in March would allow the attorney general to restore gun rights based on a person's "past criminal activity and their subsequent and current law-abiding behavior." On April 3, The New York Times reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi had approved allowing the actor Mel Gibson to own guns again after he pleaded no contest in 2011 to misdemeanor battery against a former girlfriend. Domestic violence advocates have decried the proposed rule. "It's taken us decades to get to the place where we recognize the risk associated with firearms, and I cannot fathom making a decision that would undo that," said Anna Harper, the executive vice president of Emerge Center Against Domestic Abuse in Tucson. About 75 percent—$7 million—of the Emerge Center's annual budget comes from federal funding, Harper said. That money supports a range of services, including a program in which the center works with police and the local domestic violence court to monitor gun-related cases. An OVW grant pays for court advocates to shepherd the survivors through the legal system and create safety plans when their abusers are about to regain access to guns. Harper now says she might have to lay off the advocates. "When we talk about intervening and domestic violence fatalities," Harper said, "those advocates and the services they provide are really critical." While groups are seeking to court new donors, Leeann Luna, the CEO of Monarch Services, a domestic violence group in Santa Cruz County, California, said there is not enough private funding to go around. "Unfortunately, it's really tricky because, while we are creating partnerships and relationships for funding with, say, private foundations, it still isn't going to rise to the amount that the federal government gives us," she said. Even if the White House renews the grant programs, Luna said the administration's staffing cuts could hinder groups' access to the money. "All of these grants are reimbursement-based," she said. "If he (Trump) continues to let people go, is that going to then impact our ability to receive payment in a timely manner, or even at all?" Several advocates expressed concern about federal funding losses jeopardizing efforts to disarm abusers. In January, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, published a study showing that 85 percent of men who self-reported committing domestic abuse also owned a gun. Previous research has found that abusers with access to firearms are five times more likely to kill their partners. OVW has funded programs to help survivors obtain court orders to temporarily remove guns from their abusers. But Jennifer Wagman, co-associate director of UCLA's Center for Gender and Health Justice, said many survivors are still unaware of the process, and even when such orders are issued, enforcement is lackluster. "These funding cuts can make an already challenged system even less effective," Wagman said. At the Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center, where K.C. received help, CEO Teresa Stafford-Wright, said her group was trying to reapply for funding for its court program when the grant opportunities disappeared from OVW's website. Now, she is worried about keeping that program running. "We are already at capacity with the work that we're doing with the funding that we have," Stafford-Wright said. K.C. credits Hope And Healing with landing her a job and an apartment for her and her kids. Without federal funding, she said, other survivors won't get the help they need. "Nobody should continue to live in abuse," she said. "Pulling funding definitely would alter the dynamics and enable abusers to continue the cycle over and over." This story was produced by The Trace and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Associated Press
26-02-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
OneMeta Inc. to Provide Real-Time Multilingual Interpretation Technology For Upcoming UCAP Conference for Help, Hope and Healing
Bountiful, Utah--(Newsfile Corp. - February 26, 2025) - OneMeta Inc. (OTCQB: ONEI) ( the global leader in AI-driven multilingual communication solutions, is honored to announce its collaboration with UCAP ( OneMeta will provide real-time, AI-powered interpretation services using VerbumOnSite during its upcoming conference event: Conference for Help, Hope and Healing on March 1st, 2025. This effort underscores OneMeta's and UCAP's shared commitment to fostering language inclusiveness and raising awareness on critical societal issues. VerbumOnSite will benefit the event by ensuring multilingual attendees can fully engage and connect with the program. Through real-time subtitles in their native language, attendees will experience every session and discussion with unparalleled clarity. This collaboration reinforces UCAP's foundational mission to empower individuals, strengthen families, and unite organizations in the fight against the effects of adult explicit video content through education and collaboration. 'At OneMeta, we believe communication is the bridge to understanding,' said Saúl Leal, CEO of OneMeta Inc. 'Partnering with the UCAP allows us to bring our mission to life by improving accessibility for the Latin community. Together, we aim to break barriers, foster language inclusion, and highlight the critical importance of addressing the fight against the effects of adult explicit video content in our society.' 'We are thrilled to partner with OneMeta for this important event,' said Melissa Hackett, Executive Director of the UCAP. 'Providing this level of accessibility through VerbumOnSite marks a critical step toward expanding our reach and ensuring that all communities can fully engage. Through this collaboration, we continue to work toward a safer and more inclusive Utah.' OneMeta's VerbumOnSite leverages proprietary AI to deliver near-real-time multilingual interpretation across various sectors, from healthcare and education to government and public advocacy events. Its seamless integration makes it an ideal tool for events seeking to ensure inclusivity, connection, and understanding. About OneMeta Inc. OneMeta Inc. is a multilingual enablement company focused on overcoming the communication challenges of a world with many languages. Its proprietary end-to-end natural language processing architecture allows the spoken and written words to be synthesized, translated, and transcribed in less than one second. OneMeta's technology supports real-time web-based and mobile phone-based conversations, discussions, meetings, and online chats in over 140 languages and dialects. OneMeta's technology is fully compliant with SOC2, HIPAA, and GDPR standards, ensuring the highest levels of enterprise security and privacy. OneMeta Inc.: We create a more understanding world.™ The UCAP is committed to empowering individuals, strengthening families, and uniting organizations in the fight against adult explicit video content through education and collaboration. The UCAP provides resources, support groups, and educational events aimed at prevention and recovery. By fostering hope, help, and healing, The UCAP strives to create a society where families are protected, and individuals are equipped to make informed choices regarding media consumption. Join us in our mission to promote a healthier, more informed community. Visit
