On January 9th, 2024, The Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative (PAARI) hosted its first South Carolina Convening. The purpose of this gathering was to educate participants about PAARI, provide a platform for mutual learning among attendees, facilitate the exchange of resources, and foster discussions on best practices within the deflection space
The convening commenced with Amy Prock, Chief of Police at Myrtle Beach Police Department, expressing gratitude to all attendees for joining the call. Myrtle Beach Police Department is a proud PAARI partner, and Chief Prock is an exemplary member of PAARI’s Public Safety Council.
Following Chief Prock’s opening remarks, Brittney Garrett, Senior Director of Public Safety Engagement and Strategy, delved into various PAARI models and provided a brief history of the organization.
Zoe Grover-Scicchitano, Executive Director of PAARI, then introduced Chief Mark Arnold from the Mount Pleasant Police Department, to share about his department’s involvement with the Charleston County Addiction Crisis Task Force. Chief Arnold emphasized, “My predecessor realized early on that we weren’t going to arrest our way out of opioid addiction.”
Chief Arnold then introduced Captain Christopher Rosier, the leader of the department’s First Step Program, which focuses on overdose response in the area. Capt. Rosier provided a presentation on program data and outlined the next steps for the system. The complete recording of the event, including Capt. Rosier’s entire presentation and slides, can be found at the link HERE.
The convening was attended by professionals from the below organizations:
- Cayce Fire Department
- Charleston Center
- Charleston Police Department
- City of Greenville Fire Department
- Clemson University Police Department
- Clemson University
- Community Volunteer
- Dorchester County Government
- Emergent
- FABOR Piedmont
- Florence County Sheriff’s Office
- Goose Creek Police Department
- Greenville County Sheriff’s Office
- Harry County Police Department
- HIDTA
- Indivior
- Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office
- LMSW
- Mount Pleasant Police Department
- Myrtle Beach Fire Department
- Myrtle Beach Police Department
- North Charleston Police
- PAARI
- Premier BioTech
- Rapid Shelter Columbia
- South Carolina Opioid Recovery Fund Board
- Timmonsville Police Department
- Wellford City Police Department
The second South Carolina Convening will be held on April 9th at 1:30 p.m. EST, registration is available here. If you would like your program to be highlighted during this meeting or have any feedback regarding possible meeting topics, please contact Brittney Garrett at brittney@paariusa.org.
