Banking on KC – Emily Hage of First Call: Offering Resources and Hope to End Addiction
The links clicked within the podcast player window and the links below will take you to a site other than Country Club Bank’s.
Listen above or read the transcript below. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify as well as watching on YouTube!
Kelly Scanlon: Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Emily Hague, the president and CEO of First Call, an organization that offers comprehensive services to address substance use disorders. Welcome, Emily. Hi there. What are some of the services programs?
Offerings that you make to individuals and their families who are affected by substance use disorders.
Emily Hage: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. First Call is so unique in Kansas City because we offer services across the continuum of care. So what we mean when we say that is services all the way from a universal prevention program that all fourth graders in a school receive all the way through recovery support services.
For people who are in early recovery from substance use disorder and, and a lot of things in between. So we have those two big buckets, prevention and recovery services. And then within them we also do harm reduction work, which is really overdose prevention. Mm-hmm. As well as family services. So services for adults and children impacted by a loved one's addiction.
Kelly Scanlon: I find it really interesting that you're starting in the schools to create that awareness. What are some of the things that go into that program? Yeah.
Emily Hage: What we know is our best investment is on prevention, starting as early as kindergarten. That's probably been one of our largest areas of growth over the past decade, is working alongside school partners to build trust and get into, um, classrooms.
So it looks a lot of different ways. Every school has, has a different approach to identifying children that would be good fits. Mm-hmm. And so oftentimes that's, like I said, as an example, an entire classroom of kids. Um, and we have programs that are awesome fits for just skill building, resilience, building healthy coping skills.
And then as kids get older, of course we're talking specifically about. Risk is so associated with drug and alcohol use. Um, but some schools might choose to have a little bit of a more indicated approach where, hey, you know, we have a student who's gotten in trouble a couple times, we're seeing some risky decision making risky behaviors, and we can do a group that's a little bit more targeted on kids that, um, are displaying some what we would call risky behaviors.
Kelly Scanlon: Yeah. So, First Call has been a cornerstone in Kansas City's addiction recovery landscape since 1958. So, what about seven decades now? Mm-hmm. Six, seven decades. In addition to working with the schools, what are some of the other ways the organization's mission has evolved during that time?
Emily Hage: Yeah, I would say our growth and evolution has really been fueled through partnership. And so, um, our founding, uh, service is a twenty-four-seven crisis call line where we offer information and referral for substance use disorder treatment and support in Kansas City. And that's still very much at the center of our work.
But in the, you know, years since then, we've added our family services programs in the seventies. We've added all of our prevention work. We are the prevention resource center for a four-county area in Missouri, and so we offer technical assistance to coalitions. And in mo more recent years, we've done been doing more and more direct service through recovery, advocacy, recovery, support services for individuals who are trying to navigate a really complicated web of resources as it relates to their own addiction and, and their quest for recovery.
Kelly Scanlon: You mentioned the prevention and harm reduction a couple of times. Can you expand on that for us?
Emily Hage: So, harm reduction really is the core tenet – meeting someone where they are, and so in our work, what that means is the person we're working with sets their goals.
We don't set the goal for them, and so we want to look at gradual progress sometimes, and so sometimes that notion of complete abstinence out of the gate is an absolute barrier for someone. But if we can talk about using less, or we can talk about not using illicit drugs, and these are stepping stones to someone's own health.
But the reason why harm reduction is so critical right now is because in the past I. 10 years this country has been dealing with this opioid crisis. Yes, yes. With the latest wave being an overdose epidemic. And what's happening is people are dying as they are seeking abstinence, and so there has to be a middle ground of making drug use safer.
And saving lives as a result.
Kelly Scanlon: One of the programs that you have actually focuses on those who have recently been released from incarceration as well as assisting people who may be uninsured. How do you work, uh, specifically with those cohorts?
Emily Hage: We had an awesome opportunity with five years of federal funding to test our theory around how can we support folks that are transitioning out of incarceration who also have an addiction.
And what we learned is that we really need. Holistic strategy. So first off, we need to build a trusting relationship with a peer or um, a counselor as soon as humanly possible. But we also know that that person needs a safe, sober living or transitional living environment. They might need support with employment, with some basic needs.
And so our program really has grown to. It's so much more than, you know, just talking one-on-one or in a group setting with a professional. It really acknowledges that there are a number of barriers, particularly for justice-involved individuals.
Kelly Scanlon: What’s one misconception that the general public has about addiction recovery?
Emily Hage: I think that so much of our work, and it has been since the very beginning in 1958, is about stigma and about the fact that addiction is a brain disease. It's not a moral failing. And, you know I think that there's a really good and healthy conversation happening around mental health in our country and our community.
And so we want people to understand addiction is also a mental health disorder. It's a chronic progressive disease, but it is treatable.
Kelly Scanlon: We've talked about the impact on the individual to a certain extent, and also their families, but what's the impact of substance abuse on the community, whether it's economic, extended family, what are some of the larger impacts?
Emily Hage: Mm-hmm. You know, there's a really cool initiative called Recovery Friendly Workplace that we've been very involved with in Missouri and in the Kansas City area. And it's a pretty basic tenet, which is, it makes better business sense for employers to understand how to support their employees who are dealing with a substance use disorder than to incur the additional costs related to turnover and productivity.
And so there's a very clear business case to be made around why we need to invest in prevention and recovery services. It's far more cost-effective to prevent and treat an addiction than to incarcerate someone. So, we look to data like that all the time to make our case and to help kind of take this out of that moral ground.
But you know, the, the impact on a family when we're talking about addiction is, is huge. I think there are some really basic tenets that we're constantly trying to teach families – you didn't cause this and you can't cure it. And building the separation of you can't control what your loved one's doing, and so how can you take steps to restore some healthy balance in your own life?
Kelly Scanlon: So, you've been with your organization for 15 years, and you've seen a lot during that time. What is one thing that you would say is getting better when it comes to addiction recovery, and what are the areas where there's still quite a bit of work to be done?
Emily Hage: That's a good question. First off, from a prevention standpoint, I mean, we've seen massive progress around tobacco use and cigarette use. And that is really connected to evidence-based prevention efforts over the past many decades. And we're seeing the same thing as it relates to educating the community around the dangers of prescription drug use. So, when we talk about this opioid crisis, you know, there have been multiple waves.
The first starting with the overprescribing of narcotics like Oxycontin. So, we've seen that prescribing patterns have changed, that our young people understand that they shouldn't take pills that are not prescribed to them. The challenge is every time that we make progress on one front, now here comes fentanyl laced pills that are being bought and sold on social media.
Kelly Scanlon: Right, right. So people not intending to take fentanyl, but…
Emily Hage: Exactly. So like, but they still end up working it. Our young people understand that Oxycontin is a bad idea, but. Hey, maybe Adderall or Xanax feel a little bit more approachable or Percocet. So, you know, our work is constantly evolving for prevention, but what we know is a steadfast, well-funded approach works.
I would say the other thing is just the challenges that people are dealing with. Across the board, not just people with addiction but economic deprivation and insecurity and figuring out how we can continue to make those vital resources available, like housing, when housing gets more and more expensive.
Those are huge challenges.
Kelly Scanlon: Absolutely. You mentioned the outreach that you do in the schools. You know, you start trying to get that message, that preventative message across. Identify children early who may already be exhibiting risky behaviors and help to get in there and provide alternatives and education for the greater community, for adults, even people who are incarcerated.
How do you reach those people?
Emily Hage: So, I think a lot of times a starting point is a one-time encounter, like someone calling the crisis call line. Oftentimes that's an individual themselves or someone who really cares about them. Sometimes that's a standalone assessment, maybe that has been court-ordered or not.
And so there are these small ways that we get to know people and kind of establish ourselves as a resource, but otherwise. Our expertise is we bring addiction expertise where it might be lacking. So, we'll partner with other trusted, you know, public assets like the Kansas City Library or with a sober living home to say, “Hey, we recognize that you're seeing a slice of this, and how can we support you?” So, it's really through partnership that we make our services available and kind of grow our reach and our impact.
Kelly Scanlon: And you also have a holistic approach, from what I understand, that would include transportation, employment, childcare, wraparound services that are going to help support this person. And I would assume that some of that you're able to do with these community partnerships you just spoke about.
Emily Hage: I think that's the beauty and the strength of Kansas City's nonprofit sector is that it's important for us to all be aware of one another so we can leverage one another's expertise and resources.
Like none of us can do it all. First Call is strongest when we're pretty singularly focused on substance use disorder. Just like, you know, my friends at Connections to Success are strongest when they're focused on employment. So I think that through that relationship-building we can make best use of our resources.
And, and oftentimes that means if we're writing a grant, we're thinking through how can we pass on the resources to our partner agencies?
Kelly Scanlon: We're hearing more and more about digital health solutions like telehealth. There's all kinds of different ways you can slice and dice the digital health solution.
So, how's First Call integrating technology into its services?
Emily Hage: Covid was a really tricky period of time for human services and social services agencies, but it forced us all to adapt overnight. And so some of the lessons that we learned around, hey, our family services, How to COPE group, we do that every month.
We've done it in person for 40 years and now it's hybrid every month because we recognize we have the tools at the office to make it a hybrid group, and that means more people can join us and not worry about daycare or things that might have historically been barriers. First Call has a kind of interesting perspective on technology.
We actually worked pretty closely with a lot of local philanthropy over 2004, probably to 2015 to build an electronic health record called Community Care Link. And that tool really is meant to be a shared record that connects so many social services agencies in Jackson County. It's still in use. And the beauty of that means that if, you know, say a client is participating in Kansas City's drug Court, they have a record in that system that they can authorize access to other agencies to share data and I think that's so critical because these folks are often dealing with trauma. They're telling really difficult parts of their life and sharing things that are hard to share or could be traumatic and triggering to do that.
And so the tool is really meant to be trauma-informed, client-centered, and that's kind of a cool part of our history. We don't run the software company anymore. We're totally separate, but I think that we've benefited from having leaders for many years that have understood that technology's gonna be the way that we stay connected with our partners and with our clients.
Kelly Scanlon: Let's say I am a coworker or maybe I'm a family member and I see signs that there may be something amiss. You know, that somebody may be struggling, what is the best way to deal with that? Not just yourself, but what's the best way to help that person? =
Emily Hage: I think that because I get this question all the time and anyone who works at First Call does, because it feels like an off-limits subject. Like people kind of don't trust their own expertise or they feel like they don't have the tools or maybe they're afraid that they'll just push the person further away. So, it can be delicate, but I think first and foremost, someone dealing with addiction needs to feel valued and with dignity and recognition that like, this is probably a good person dealing with a hard thing.
But that's, that's really the beauty of our crisis call line is most of the time it's not the person calling for themselves, it's a mom calling on behalf of her kid or a friend calling on behalf of a friend. And, when we have those conversations, we're really having two conversations.
We're trying to understand what's going on with that person. What might be– do they need detox? Do they need an outpatient treatment program? Do they need a community self-help group, like AA or NA? But we have another conversation around, hey, person who loves this person in a hard time, what are you doing to take care of yourself?
And here are some ways that we can support you. And I think that that's such a basic tenet, but is so powerful because, and I'm someone who loves lots of people with addiction who have been healthy and not. You kind of sit around waiting for someone else to do something, and so how can we get it into this realm of like, oh no, there are things you can do right now.
There are boundaries you can set. There are decisions you can make, and that makes us, the people who love people, feel more empowered and secure in navigating a really tricky situation.
Kelly Scanlon: You mentioned that you've been with First Call for 15 years. How did you get involved in this area of work?
Emily Hage: My childhood home. My parents met at an AA meeting 43 years ago, and so their recovery was really at the center of our family, and that meant a lot of people were welcomed into our home who needed a safe place to be or a nice warm meal. And so I have just always been very interested in access to substance use treatment because it's always been very complicated and I studied social policy and nonprofit management for my master's degree, and I studied how to access publicly funded treatment in Minnesota and the reality is it's hard everywhere. And in Kansas City, we have a bi-state metro, which makes everything even harder.
Just kind of take in my own personal experience and passion and gratitude for the fact that I've never seen my parents drink or use drugs. This just kind of morphed into my life's mission.
Kelly Scanlon: The fact that you've never seen them use drugs or to drink showed you from an early age that there is hope and that there is a path forward.
Emily Hage: Yeah. because they had a beautiful, rich, totally fulfilled life and I think that, you know, if you're someone who's been reliant on drugs or alcohol as kind of the thing you do that can feel really hard and scary to think it's not gonna be fun anymore at First Call. You know, so many of our staff are in recovery, so many of the folks that come to our events are in recovery, so alcohol is not part of our cultural dynamic. But guess what? We still have so much fun together and I think that's a really important message.
Kelly Scanlon: If you could create a public service campaign that every Kansas Citian saw, what would your message be?
Emily Hage: I think it would be relating the fact that we don't think cancer's a moral failing.
We don't think diabetes is a moral failing. We don't think covid is a moral failing, and we don't want people to think that addiction is a moral failing either. We really wanna liken addiction to other chronic progressive diseases, just to encourage the fact that treatment works when recovery is possible, and we just need people to feel safe asking for help.
Kelly Scanlon: Looking ahead, what are some of your strategic priorities for First Call, say in the next five years or so?
Emily Hage: We are dreaming really big. You know, I've been at First Call for 15 years. I was the 16th employee. I think we'll have 34 employees this year, and we are trying to build a truly robust bi-state presence in every major school district across the metro, partnering on both sides of the state line to offer recovery support services, and continue our overdose prevention work and our harm reduction work.
And so we see that as probably doubling the staff in the next five years, adding a second location for the office. And so we really are dreaming big because the whole field is making immense progress. Overdose deaths were down dramatically last year and we're on track to continue that decrease. And it didn't happen accidentally.
It happened because people who do this work are busting their tails to improve the lives of people who use drugs and so it's not time to let up on the gas, you know? Yes.
Kelly Scanlon: You mentioned volunteers a little bit earlier. If our listeners would be interested in getting in touch with you to ask about volunteer opportunities or help you and support your organization in other ways, what would some of those ways be and what's the best way to reach you?
Emily Hage: Well, our website is www.firstcallkc.org. And there is a form there, and our crisis call line is (816) 361-5900. And that's just the general line too. But we have several ways. We've been working hard to develop more ways that volunteers can help us, whether it's through packing hygiene kits that we make available for our clients, helping organize harm reduction supplies like test strips or Naloxone, which is the overdose reversal drug. We also have a speaker's ambassador program and so we leverage volunteers to help us get out into the community and man tables, and we'll train people to know how to have those conversations. If you're at a community fair and people stop by with questions, there's so much power in naming you’re supportive of First Call and kind of owning the fact that there are very few of us who are not impacted by addiction and we just want to frame this as a public health issue that needs all of our attention.
Kelly Scanlon: So, www.firstcallkc.org. You can go out there, read more about the organization and ways that you can get involved and also reach out and make contact.
Emily, thank you so much for all the work that you and your team do and for taking the time to come and share your time with us about this issue.
Emily Hage: Yeah, thank you for having me. Been great.
Joe Close: This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Emily Hague, president and CEO of First Call for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. Emily shared valuable insights into First Call’s vital role in providing prevention, recovery, and harm reduction services to individuals and families impacted by alcohol, drugs, and addiction.
Their efforts are making a significant difference in the lives of many of our neighbors. We recognize that collaboration is key to addressing community needs. The partnerships between First Call and other local organizations reflect two of Country Club Bank's core values– teamwork, and compassion. We're committed to working together with organizations like First Call to ensure individuals are treated with dignity and have access to the support they need to overcome challenges and to thrive. Thanks for tuning in this week. We’re banking on you, Kansas City.
Country Club Bank member FDIC.