HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Dr. Stephen Petrany doesn’t know what the Huntington and Cabell County community will look like in 10 or 15 years in regards to the opioid crisis but he does know there will be consequences from the crisis at that time.

That’s why Petrany, the chair of family and community health at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, and dozens of other community leaders in Cabell County formed a “Resiliency Plan.”

The plan outlines a strategic vision for recovery during the next 30 years in the community. Petrany said it’s flexible and organic to change with the times and allows for exchange of information and constant reassessment.

“It’s a unique community where the academic, the healthcare and the political elements of the community come together and said we are going to take care of this and fix this,” Petrany told MetroNews.

The plan toward recovery from the effects of the substance use epidemic in the community had been worked on for over a year.

A meeting of representatives from the business, education, government, medical, mental health, faith-based, and social service sectors crafted the plan that features short-term, intermediate-term and a section on long term issues.

Short-term approaches include reducing immediate physical, behavioral, and social needs of infants and children affected, providing evidence-based substance use education, and reducing barriers to treatment and recovery services and more, a release said.

The goals for long-term in the Resiliency Plan center around expanding prevention and early intervention efforts, building capacity for research and dissemination of best practices, coordinating efforts between legal/judicial and health care systems to reduce substance use, establishing frameworks for revitalizing business and employment opportunities for those in long-term recovery and addressing the multi-generational effects of substance use disorder.

“We met with smaller group meetings where people focused on various aspects of the problem and put it all together in what we think is an excellent strategy for our community, our city and county moving forward in what we anticipate will be decades of fallout from this epidemic,” Petrany said.

Petrany did say the centerpiece of the plan is a proposed Addiction Sciences Institute, a focal point for community collaboration and information sharing across all systems. The institute would feature state-of-the-art research facilities, a center for education and offices for representatives of community stakeholders and partners, per release.

“We would have cutting edge research as well as an element of education for not only healthcare providers but the community. It’s also a place where all the stakeholders, all the agencies involved will have some representation so we can be working together, cooperating, meeting, and exchanging information at all times as we move forward with the plan,” Petrany said.

Participating organizations in the 34-page plan include Cabell County Commission, Cabell County EMS, Cabell-Huntington Health Department, Cabell-Huntington-Wayne Continuum of Care, City of Huntington, FaithHealth Appalachia, Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce, Lily’s Place, Marshall Health, Marshall University (Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, Research Corporation, School of Pharmacy), Mountain Health Network (Cabell Huntington Hospital, St. Mary’s Medical Center), Prestera Center, PROACT, Valley Health Systems, Inc., United Way of the River Cities (Prevention Empowerment Partnership), and West Virginia DHHR Office of Drug Control Policy.

Petrany admitted it will be a long and difficult process but knows it can be done because of how resilient the community has become. That’s how the plan got its name.

“Resilience is the capacity to recover from difficulties and toughness,” he said. “We think we have that kind of community here in Huntington and Cabell County.”

The 34-page Resiliency Plan can be downloaded from the School of Medicine’s website.