PAARI Announces November 2025 Spotlight Series Guests: Richland County Sheriff’s Department
BOSTON, MA, November 24, 2025 – The Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative (PAARI) is excited to announce the upcoming guests for the Partner Spotlight Series, a program launched in January 2023 that highlights a deserving partner once per month who is running an excellent PAARI model program. The series takes place on the last Tuesday of each month.
This month, PAARI will welcome the Richland County Sheriff’s Department to engage participants as they learn strategies that have made a “top-down” wellness program successful in South Carolina’s largest sheriff’s department. Following a four-year implementation timeline, topics will include: leveraging local trends and national politics, establishing community partnerships, creating buy-in through intentional introductions to program elements, wellness team staffing; universal assessments, and the intersection between wellness staff and command staff.
Participants will learn how to expand an existing employee wellness program to the community through the implementation of the nationally recognized LEAD program to effectively deflect low-level offenders from the criminal justice system by removing barriers to care, creating a community that advocates for wellness, and techniques for improving community engagement around deflection practices while conveying clear and concise programmatic results as well as lessons learned.
“We are incredibly proud of the work our department is doing to expand our employee wellness program into the community,” says Deputy Chief Maria Yturria. “Through the implementation of the evidence-based LEAD program, we are effectively deflecting low-level offenders from the criminal justice system, removing barriers to care, and fostering a community that advocates for wellness. It’s truly inspiring to see the positive impact we are making.”
“We are thrilled to announce the Richland County Sheriff’s Department as our next guest for the Partner Spotlight Series,” says Zoe Grover, Executive Director of PAARI. “Richland County has been a clear leader in this field of deflection and we are honored that they will be joining us this month. We have been overjoyed by the turnout of each webinar in this series so far. We hope that our PAARI partners continue to join us every month to learn about successful deflection programs and how they can continue to be further involved in this movement.”
ABOUT PAARI: The Police Assisted Addiction & Recovery Initiative (PAARI) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to help law enforcement agencies nationwide create non-arrest pathways to treatment and recovery. Founded alongside the groundbreaking Gloucester, Mass., Police Department Angel Initiative in June 2015, PAARI has been a driving force behind this rapidly expanding community policing movement. We provide technical assistance, strategic guidance, connection to training resources, and other capacity-building resources to more than 800 police departments in 46 states.
PAARI and our law enforcement partners are working towards a collective vision where non-arrest diversion programs become a standard policing practice across the country, thereby reducing overdose deaths, expanding access to treatment, improving public safety, reducing crime, diverting people away from the criminal justice system, and increasing trust between law enforcement and their communities. Our programs and partners have saved tens of thousands of lives, changed police culture, and reshaped the national conversation about the opioid epidemic since its founding in June 2015. Learn more at paariusa.org.
ABOUT RICHLAND COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT: Located in the heart of South Carolina, Richland County is home to Columbia, the Capital City, six universities and colleges, the nation’s largest military training base and a pristine array of lakes, rivers, forests and parks. Richland County covers 756 square miles and has a population of approximately 425,000 making it the second most populous county in South Carolina.
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department is built on the cornerstone of a rich and proud law enforcement tradition that spans over 200 years. The Department currently employs over 700 sworn deputies and 140 non-sworn personnel, making it the largest law enforcement agency in the state.
The Sheriff’s Department has a host of programs and initiatives to support its diverse community, to include D.A.R.E, Citizens Academy, Project Hope, Project Life Saver, Citizen’ Advisory Council, Summer Camps, Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), and the most recently implemented Law Enforcement Assisted Deflection (LEAD) initiative.
