Vermont Business Magazine The Chittenden County Opioid Alliance (CCOA) announced today that Samuel Francis-Fath has been hired as data manager. CCOA is a new collaborative partnership of local non-profit agencies, business leaders, community members, state government, the City of Burlington and the University of Vermont Medical Center. CCOA is dedicated to reducing the opioid crisis and the burden it places on our communities.
Samuel Francis-Fath
“Samuel brings experience to CCOA that will be instrumental to our partnership mission,” said Cathy Aikman, CCOA project director. “We are fortunate to have him on board to oversee our effort to create a collaborative data system to monitor key opioid measures across all partner organizations. These program measures are essential to evaluating and employing successful strategies to impact the opioid crisis in Chittenden County.”
“This is an exciting time to join CCOA,” said Francis-Fath. “I’m looking forward to being a part of this important work in our community to address the epidemic of opioid abuse and misuse.”
Francis-Fath graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelor’s in Business Administration. He has a background in market research, with technical expertise in reporting and information systems, including analytics, statistics, and effective data reporting.
In addition to his work on the data monitoring system, Francis-Fath will dedicate half of his time to the Burlington Police Department – supporting the City of Burlington and Vermont Agency of Human Service’s joint CommunityStat effort, and working with the City’s newly hired Opioid Policy Director.
“The CCOA is based on a collective impact approach where a variety of organizations that share a common agenda and goals join together to have a greater effect than they might have on their own,” said Aikman. Four Action Teams are organized under CCOA: Community-Level Prevention; Treatment Access and Recovery Support; Workforce Development, and CommunityStat, a management tool model to share data, information and performance improvement initiatives.
Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo is one of CCOA’s lead supporters.
“To address the complexities and pervasiveness of opioids, we need a collective effort with good baseline data that we can use to measure our progress,” said del Pozo, who serves as co-chair of the CCOA CommunityStat Action Team. “With timely and accurate intelligence and information, we can develop effective tactics, deploy resources rapidly and in the right places, and establish a protocol for relentless follow-up of our work. This partnership is a pathway to meaningful progress.”
Chittenden County Opioid Alliance
The Chittenden County Opioid Alliance is funded by the University of Vermont Medical Center, the Stiller Family Foundation through the United Way of Northwest Vermont, and the Green Mountain Care Board through State Innovation Model funds, while the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, the cooperative regional forum for the development of policies, plans and programs that address regional issues and opportunities in Chittenden County, is the fiscal and administrative agent of the grant funds.
Source: CCOA 10.14.2016. For more information, please contact CCOA Project Director Cathy Aikman at [email protected] or (802) 861-0138, or visit ecosproject.com/chittenden-county-opioid-alliance.