Joseph Francic attends an empowerment class Friday at Butler County Community College, part of a larger initiative to help participants be successful in the workplace.

Virus precautions taken earlier this year brought an end to many of the tools that people in drug recovery rely on, from in-person meetings such as Narcotics Anonymous to inpatient programs.

Telehealth alternatives were used for outpatient drug rehabilitation programs in places like Butler Memorial Hospital. But the outpatient program there experienced a significant drop in participants, according to Robert Muntz, coordinator of drug and alcohol services at the hospital. The programs have returned to normal operations since May.

“Something really was lost from not doing face-to-face conversations,” Muntz said. “Without having face-to-face contact, you lost a lot in communicating. Any active signs of addiction gets lost. Eye contact, body language, all those things to gauge more information. Because of that, I do think it was less effective.”

That interruption appears to have increased relapses and overdose deaths, according to county statistics and interviews with people in the drug recovery community.

For the year, overdose deaths have climbed to 51 as of August, according to the county coroner, a body count that is likely to exceed last year's. And across the nation, there have been similar increases. According to the American Medical Association, more than 40 states have reported increases in opioid-related mortality as well as ongoing concerns for those with a mental illness or substance use disorder.

In Butler, a pilot program initiated by the county government looks to help those recovering from addiction through a blend of career training, employment and personal empowerment.

Earlier this year, the county began working on an empowerment program developed in Minneapolis to help people become — and stay — gainfully employed, and to help people recovering from drug addiction by changing their mindset and getting off the carousel of addiction.

Coronavirus precautions delayed the initiative, but this fall the empowerment program resumed and has led to the creation of a class at Butler County Community College for recovering drug addicts.

“This is the county's response to the opioid crisis,” said Jason Beckwith, who was trained in the program along with other county officials, and now teaches one of the classes at BC3.

Beckwith wasn't surprised by the rise in overdose deaths this year.

“I've definitely seen relapses were higher than normally, which factors into ODs being higher,” he said.

Recently, he spoke to students about self-worth and not dwelling on past mistakes. “We're not giving you a hand out. We're giving you a hand up,” Beckwith said about the class. “Nobody here is helpless.”

The college class of eight people in recovery began in September and runs five days a week for eight weeks, according to Lisa Campbell, the college's dean of workforce development.

Campbell also underwent the empowerment training. The class being run through her department combines a manufacturing class and certificate program with the empowerment training.

“As a large community effort, we were looking at a population of individuals in recovery that need and want to go to work, and we have a work force shortage in the county for manufacturing, so we asked what can we do to help them and came up with this,” Campbell said.

The class was created with the help of Amanda Feltenberger, director of integrated services for Butler County Human Services. She said the training is part of an overall empowerment initiative in the county being offered to a number of people and is not specifically aimed at drug rehabilitation.

Feltenberger said the empowerment class at BC3 is a part of that larger initiative.

“You can give somebody a job skill all day long, but if they don't believe in themselves and have hope for themselves and acknowledgment that they could do better, how far will they get with it?” Feltenberger said. “The reason we wanted to create something like this is we could support people more in recovery by helping them have this employment track.”

She noted employers in the county have signed up for hiring people who come out of the program, and she hopes to see the initiative benefit people outside of recovery too.

The initiative began with County Commissioner Leslie Osche looking for solutions to employing more people in the county.

“The Economic Development and Growth collaborative recognized that there were a lot of missing employees in various industries in the county,” Osche said. “We've made tremendous progress, incredible support for the business community.”

She said the initiative brought together various employers and county interests, and the county is committed to funding and supporting the initiative to grow it to a point where other institutions like Slippery Rock University and high schools implement versions of it. “If you have a lot of baggage you're carrying around and your self image isn't great, it makes it pretty hard to be successful in the workplace. Our youths really struggle because of a lot of anxiety and depression. The pressure and stress that comes with social media is a big factor in that,” Osche said. “It's holding people back, I think. So, the hope will be this will help people overcome some of that.”