The past week has included several honors for the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey.

Last Wednesday, we received five awards at the NJ Ad Club’s 50^th Annual Jersey Awards. The Knock Out Opioid Abuse Town Hall Series was the big winner, taking home first place in the Not for Profit/Pro Bono Work sub-category as well as the trophy for Best of Public Relations, awarded to the top winner from the entire category.

The town hall series, supported by a grant from The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, began in April 2017 and was hosted for audiences from every county in the state. More than 13,600 people participated either in person or online via live stream at the town halls, which provided New Jersey residents with a comprehensive understanding of the causes and effects of the opioid epidemic.

The series made a positive impact in educating the public about the dangers of opioids and helped organizers to develop a better understanding of how the opioid crisis has impacted different communities throughout the state. It was an exciting honor for the NJ Ad Club to recognize those efforts with two awards.

PDFNJ also received first-place awards in the Public Relations: Advocacy/Political Multimedia Campaign category for the second annual Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day; the Out of Home: Transit Shelter category for the “Before They Prescribe, You Decide” campaign; and the Music: Original Music Competition/Non-Jingle for Commercial category for the song “Invisible,” written and performed by Anna Toby Rabinowitz and Anna Zibit as part of the 2017 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Songwriters Contest organized by LIFE Center Stage and the Community Coalition for a Safe and Healthy Morris.

Then earlier this week, the Partnership, along with the DEA – New Jersey Division, presented a poster on the Do No Harm Symposium Series at the International Conference on Opioids at Harvard Medical School.

The Do No Harm Symposiums have been a valuable component in the Partnership’s efforts to educate medical professionals on the importance of safe prescribing in fighting the opioid epidemic. Thanks to our partnership with the DEA, thousands of New Jersey doctors, dentists and other prescribers have attended a Do No Harm, and a vast majority of them have changed their prescribing practices based on what they learned.