PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — On Pasco Kids First's walls are dozens of t-shirts with special messages created by kids in trauma therapy.
“A lot of children, their voice has been taken away from them. And this is an ability for them to speak about the positive things that come out of going through therapy,” said Pasco Kids First President Mike Trepper.
Trepper said the non-profit works with children to treat child abuse and neglect.
And of the thousands of cases they deal with, about 40% involve kids with parents using drugs.
“They are scared. They don’t know what happened to Mom or Dad or someone else that’s in the house. It’s chaos,” said Trepper.
That’s why Pasco Kids First applied for and will get a piece of the more than $8 million in settlement money from the drug companies.
Pasco’s Opioid Task Force awarded the money to local organizations to help fight the drug crisis.
Kids First will use its $285,000 for community outreach and education about how drug use leads to child abuse.
“It’s exciting to be part of the bigger pictures, to be part of the solution,” said Trepper.
BayCare Behavioral Health is getting the biggest piece of the pie.
$3.57 million, they say, will go toward renovating this building on its New Port Richey campus and turning it into an urgent behavioral health care facility.
“As far as we know, this is the first one in the Tampa Bay area and also the first one in the state of Florida,” said Director of Operations Tracey Kaly.
Kaly said Pasco County ranks higher than the state average when it comes to opioid abuse and deaths.
“Any additional treatment efforts in this space are sorely needed, so we think creating this new level of care will help fight that epidemic,” said Kaly.
More than 20 different organizations applied for some of the settlement money, but only nine are getting funds.
