GUELPH – After a long delay, the Upper Grand District School Board is now moving ahead with a plan to instal naloxone kits in schools.
“Due to the closure of schools in March, and the massive organizational effort required for COVID-19 for September, the implementation of naloxone was put on hold,” said superintendent of education Gary Slater at the Oct. 27 board meeting.
Naloxone temporarily reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, but the benefits are not long lasting and medical attention is still needed after it is administered.
If administered to someone who is not suffering an opioid overdose, naloxone will not harm them.
Trustees originally approved the addition of naloxone in schools and board buildings in January as part of first aid procedures.
The original plan was to use professional association days at the beginning of September to train staff and then roll out the program at the beginning of the school year.
However, due to the pandemic, the Ministry of Education dictated what happened on those days, and naloxone training was not an option, Slater said.
“Now that our schools are up and running, board staff have reworked the implementation plan, run up new timelines and a new process for training and we will be starting this training with school administrators on the professional association day at the end of November,” Slater said.
“As with many things COVID, the training will be done in an online module format.
“The format will include a video as well as an assessment component as well as a downloadable items.”
The online format will give staff the flexibility to train on a timeline that suits their availability.
Once a school’s staff has been trained, the board’s health and safety department will deliver the naloxone kits.
The kits will be installed on wall units that currently house automated external defibrillators (AEDs).
If a school or board building has more than one AED, it will have more than one naloxone kit as well.
“We expect that all staff that wish to be trained will have an opportunity to do so by the end of term one and ongoing training will be available to all staff at any time on our safe schools’ platform,” Slater said.
“So that would mean that any staff that choose to get new training or revisit the training again can do so at any time.”
Slater also said the school board will be buying new face CPR masks to add to the naloxone kits.
“We’re going to be ordering a stronger, hard plastic mask with a one-way valve in it, partly due to COVID, but also partly … just to have a more robust mask available for staff to use,” he said.
