Brenda Tyrrell, Prevention Specialist, Community and Family Resources, May 11, 2026

On the program today, we are visiting with Brenda Terrell, Brenda's Prevention Specialist with Community and Family Resources. Welcome back. Thank you. Good morning. And here we are. Hey, you've had a couple of months of working with CFR, they moved you to a whole new office location. Hopefully, they gave you an office there. I know you've worked mostly out of age, right? Right, yeah. But doing a lot of services. So most of what you've been doing is talking about services that are available from CFR. And I know you're going out, trying to spread the word as much as you can, and still at the same time, you've got some clients to work with as well. Right, exactly. Yeah. Keep busy. Yeah, it's a constant thing. We're always partnering up with people, collaborating with people, and making sure we're keeping up on the evidence-based practices, so on and so forth. So it's a lot. So this month in particular, Mental Health Awareness Month is one part of it, but it just so happens this week, happens to be National Prevention Week. So we get to cover all kinds of things, so let's talk a little bit about it. The idea behind National Prevention Week, what are we looking at? So National Prevention Week is, it's a public education platform where we talk about things like substance use. We talk about misuse and promoting positive mental health. So it fits right in with that mental health May idea. We only get a month, we don't get a week, but it still fits in with those things. So we're talking mostly about prevention of these, like substance use, misuse, those things. So prevention of those things rather than intervention or even postvention. I was thinking when you started talking about that, which comes first, the mental health issue or the substance abuse issue? Yeah, and that's the revealing thing about what we do when we're working in prevention is that all of the things that people worry about, you know, substance use, substance misuse, alcohol, opioids, all of those things, suicide, they're all playing in the same ball field, if you will. They all are connected, all, you know, you can't talk about this thing without talking about the other things. Sure. So. I think one of the things that I just remembered too, because of the legislature just getting done, was it cratum? Cratum, yeah. Cratum, that was one they wanted to put some, or one of the few that apparently don't have some of the kinds of restrictions on it, and that one's getting to be a pretty serious problem. Right, right, yeah, yeah. And you know, I think that some of the, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that when the public starts to get involved, there's already already a big issue. The big issue already exists. It's just hasn't been brought to the forefront yet. Sure. So, we're in there, okay, we got a lot of those. Anyway, that's one of the new kinds of things and stuff too. We're talking basically your focus here for, say, just National Prevention Week. What kinds of things? What are kind of the highlights that you visit with people locally? Because I know you go out, and the big thing is letting them know we have these programs, we have this assistance available, and I'm guessing a lot of times it's like, well, it's not that big of a problem, right? Right, yeah, and that's the thing. I can't tell you how many times I've heard somebody tell me, we don't have that problem here. Well, that may or may not be true, but the thing about prevention is it's prevention. Like it's before anything happens, everything is in place. So if it happens, then you know how to handle it. The community knows how to handle it, knows how to manage it. There is a really good story, a lot of my colleagues don't like this story, but I find it very useful when we talk about prevention, and it's two friends that are fishing off the river, and they're just minding their own business, and a man comes down and he's drowning. So they go in, they save him, and they go back to fishing. Pretty soon here's a woman who's coming down, she's drowning. So they fish her out, and then one friend says to the other, it's like, what's going on? Why are all these people drowning? Other friends, I'm going to go up the river and see what the problem is, and maybe we can stop it from happening. So we're going up the river to see what's happening, so we can prevent it from happening, not try to just catch up. Catch up. Right. Right. Yeah. So we offer, I'll say this again, because I think a lot of people get a little bit thrown off when we hear training. It doesn't cost anything. They're free trainings. Our hours are flexible, so we can do trainings in the evenings, you know, whenever. But we do trainings, since we have just received the steps of Hope Boxes, I think it's really important that we're thinking about how to administer naloxone, which is the opioid overdose reduction or a reduction medication. It saves lives. It literally saves lives, and it's available. It's free, so why wouldn't we learn about that? So we have public box, public distribution things, steps of Hope on there. One in Madrid, one in Boone, one in Ogden, and I know they were getting them set up. So basically, a lot of people will go, well, it's got this in here, but that's okay. I don't... Right. Well, your neighbor might be having an issue, and you would want to know how to use this. Yeah. Yeah. This is part of the trainings that are available through CFR. Yeah. Yeah. So we do that. We do understanding addiction and recovery, and that is not for... It's for family members. It's for loved ones, of somebody who's going through recovery. So it's like a support thing. We have stigma, because we've had discussions about stigma, right? When we talk about substance use disorder, we also have drug trends. We have a lot of drug trends. We talk about cratum. We talk about trauma-informed care. We have one for the general public. We have one for police law enforcement. And I think in total, we have maybe 13... We talk about psychostimulants, which is coming up in the news quite a bit lately, too. So we can do these trainings for anybody and everybody. And like I said, they're 100% free. You're not going to... The only thing you're going to give us is your time. That's it. Yeah. And then all you ask back is, now I've trained you on this, don't be afraid to use it. Yeah. And the wonderful thing about the naloxone training that we do is that anybody that participates in that class receives a free box of naloxone that has two doses in it. So they can have it on their person all the time. And then if somebody happens... They come across somebody who happens to be going through an overdose. They will be able to help them on the spot. And part of the training is that we train how to recognize the warning signs, what to do, how Narcan works, and how to recover that person until the EMS arrive. Okay. And one thing that we really want to put out there is that the Goodson-Mariton law will prevent anybody from being sued for giving Narcan. All of this is part of training that you make available. Yes. Now, so doing the training, how is this set up for people? Is it... Do you specifically look to set it up with groups? Is that the easiest way? Well, I mean, I don't know if it's the easiest way because it's hard for people to find time during their day that they're already busy, you know, and so going to places, sometimes we do that, but like we're doing office hours in all three, Boone, Madrid, and Ogden. And we also are doing, Ericsson Public Library is doing a four-series training thing in the mid-June to mid-July. Okay. So that's up and coming. So we're getting around to places. Public Health has expressed some interest about doing some trainings, but they're moving and doing a bunch of things. They're just re-getting, re-directed. Right. Right. Yeah. So, and we're reaching out to folks like the Lions Club and, you know, we talked recently about doing some events for Rag Bride coming through in the summer. Sure. Yeah. So it's a lot of footwork. You know, we go out and we knock on some doors and we visit. We do some email campaigns. We do some letter writing campaigns and stuff like that. We sent out 197 email invites a couple of weeks ago. So since you started doing this, and before Hannah was here doing it, same kind of thing. And a lot of the big things, gosh, most of the people that have been coming in for CFR, the big thing has been, we have these services. We have opportunities to give you this free training. Please. Yeah. Use us. We're a resource for you. Yes. Absolutely. We are a resource. You don't know me well enough to know this yet, but when I get bored, I do dumb things. So don't let me get bored. Okay. Keep her busy. Keep me busy. Keep her busy. But yeah, I mean, that's what we do. That is our goal. And I do want to assure everybody that we aren't just like pulling stuff off the internet and putting stuff together. Everything we do is evidence-based. It's supported and backed by multiple trainings that we do that are required in our positions. A lot of the trainings are from Iowa HHS, so they are constantly updating and making sure that we know what we're doing. So we're not just pulling stuff out of the air. We are actually receiving and basing our teachings on research-based. Okay. I wanted to ask, because we know that some basic issues, underage drinking, vaping, smoking, things like that, prescription drugs, that was a big thing there for a while, and still probably is. It still is. Yes. Again, paying attention to what's out there. But so we've got some of those basic things. People will say, wow, it doesn't happen. It does. It does. Yeah, it does. But if it never happens, wouldn't it be better to have something in place to prevent it from happening? So how do you keep up? I mean, you've got these things, and then new things coming in. How do we, I mean, the training has been kind of a new direction CFR has taken. We have free training for you. We'll get you this information so you know about it. Whether you ever have to use it or not, that's beside the point. We want you to be educated. Right. You should always be learning. So you've got to come up with new innovative things all the time to do prevention. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, we do a lot of tabling events as well. And we just, sometimes we just throw up a table and we have some stuff just so people can know who we are, put names to faces, you know, and see what we can do because we also work with a lot of coalitions and a lot of Iowa Department of Health services. So even if we can't maybe necessarily do the thing you need us to do, we probably know somebody who can. And that's what's so great about collaborating with other people is because if we can't do a service in a certain county, then maybe somebody from CFR or another organization that we work with can do that service. So it's even like, if you, even if we say, no, we can't do that, we probably know who can and we can, we can connect the two people who want to have those services. So I know that CFR, you guys have established this lengthy list of training in a variety of different areas and stuff like that. Are we seeing success? I mean, first of all, you got to get people that are willing to go through the training. Once they're trained, what do they come back and say, you know, this was not bad. I didn't know this. Yeah. We always do an evaluation at the end of the trainings just so we can get a sense of, you know, are we, are we getting the material in a way that people can absorb it and, you know, and was it worth your time? So on and so forth. Because some of our trainings are kind of long, like the Narcan one is 70 minutes. So it's extensive because there's a lot to cover. We have done presentations for certain groups that have requested us to come back and do more trainings and so on and so forth. So I think, you know, would we like to have more people? Yes, absolutely. Word of mouth is wonderful. So if somebody's saying, Hey, I did this training, maybe you should do it too. You know, and we lean on our public libraries heavily. Oh yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people use our public life. Yes. Yeah. And I know for them several years ago that one of the big pushes when they got into the month of May was mental health opportunities and what's available there too. Yeah. I think the big thing, the training part, when you do this and I'm going to imagine a group that wanted to have this, well, you know, we had about a third of our members were gone. It was, this was going on, graduation, whatever, you know, whatever's going on that time of the year. Can you come back, you know, in another two months or three months and, you know, so that we have an opportunity to do it again. Yeah. We have a minimum number. So if one person shows up for the training, we train that one person and we're happy to do that. So we don't have like, there's not going to be a time where we're not going to do a training because of low numbers. Because if we, even if we train one, we've trained someone. All right. So we've got the steps of hope, we call them bins or distribution things that are going to be set up. I know there's one, as we said, Madrid, I think over in Ogden, I think it's by the clinic over in Ogden and Boone, it's by impact. So those are there, a lot of people are going to look at them and go, what's that? Exactly. That's exactly what they're going to do. Why would they put that out there? Well, I will say, I did look at the one over by impact the other day, I was here last week and they do have a nice little brochure that says this is how you administer this medication. They have some cards about, you know, if you need other types of help, here's the thing. Who to call and stuff like that. Who to call. Yeah. Not Ghostbusters. But the thing about the card is it gives you the steps, but it doesn't give you the rationale. And when you are pulling out a Narcan and getting ready to administer, how much are you going to be able to concentrate on what that card is actually telling you to do? So it's good. It's really good. But having a conversation face to face about Narcan and being able to answer questions and things like that. How do I know this is what they need? Right. Well, yeah. And that's where the, you know, recognizing the signs and symptoms are coming from. You know, this is what, you know, Narcan, even if you don't know if it's an opioid overdose specifically, Narcan is not going to hurt anything. So if it's an opioid overdose, it will help and probably most likely save that person's life. But if it's not, it's not going to hurt them. So either way, either a good thing is going to happen or nothing's going to happen, but it's still going to be good because you didn't do more harm if that makes sense. And I'm pretty sure like all our emergency services people, I think Carrie, they have it available as they're going on calls just because. Right. Right. You never know. You never know. Security guards should have it on. If you're working big events, say like at Hilton or, you know, Puffer Billy Day, something like that. Sure. When Raghbri comes through, ladies and gentlemen. When Raghbri comes through, exactly. You know, this is something that everybody should have on their radar when big groups of people gather and you just never know what's going to happen. Or you never know if your neighbor in the driveway is going to have an opioid. All of a sudden have an episode. Right. So I got you. Having an issue. Yes. Having an issue. I mean, there's a lot of different things there too. How do they go about on the training part? I know you go out and you keep putting it out there for them too. But if they want to find out more and try to do a little more investigation on having a training set up or say, we did this training, but you know, you mentioned this, there are other things. Yeah. Yeah. So I am actually going to leave you with this little fire. So if they want to call the radio station, and I'm also going to leave my business card. Otherwise, you can go to community and family resources web page. Make sure you're on the AIMS site because that is where my main office is. It's Brenda T. Right. It's Brenda T. Yep. And CFR helps. Helps.org. I am horrible at remembering the, oh wait, here it is, it's on here. Oh, no, it's not. Okay. So I'm terrible at remembering my own phone number, but it's on the website. It's there. Please reach out. We are happy to accommodate any kind of schedule, except, you know, maybe 2 a.m. But yeah, within reason. And you know, we're here to help, so please, please, please let us help. I think a lot and for some that may not have stopped by the library when you've been there or been at another spot where you've been letting them know about the services, even if they just want to talk, start talking. Yes. That's the beginning. Right. And you know, we can also answer questions for other people that work in our office as well because we have counselors and we have other types of help available in our offices that they might want to inquire about as well. And these are just, all we're really hitting on are the training. Right. Right. We're not talking about the other parts where if somebody might be needing some substance of use assistance, that's a whole nother area that you can go into. Yeah, and I just wanted to, I'll do a short plug. We do have, in the Ames office, we do have same-day access. I believe they're going to be getting it in the Boone office shortly. Okay. Check the website. I can't remember what days they are. I think it's, yeah, I'm not going to guess because I'm not sure. But same-day access. So could be coming soon. Yeah. Soon to our office now out there in the human service building. Right. So that's another, another opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. More training? Training, training, training. We're always training. Well, and that, that's the big thing too. The more people you get information out to, it's so much when like a mental health first aid, what CFR was the first to really start doing a lot of the training and mental health first aid. Yeah. It's, more people learn about it, the better opportunity you have for people to help out. Right. And you know, the goal is not that you have to go out and use it 12 times a day. It's that you know what to do when you need to do it. So. Dr. Terrell with the community and family resources, again, a lot of information available on their website, cfrhelps.org, but make sure you go into Boone, Boone office, Ames Boone office. Again, Ames for her contact information on there, but, and be looking for, there's going to be different events that'll be coming up. I know you'll be at. So. Yeah. I'm guessing probably might be around for, I don't know, they have that kickoff carnival for the summer reading program. Yes. Actually going to be there. Oh, yeah. I thought maybe you. Yeah. Yeah. We just did a STEM event a couple of weeks ago. That was fun. That'll be again, working through the library and that. Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us. Yes. Thank you.