Following grant money allocations, Tuscarawas County Job and Family Services will hire several people in an effort to fight addiction.

Services Director Veronica Spidell says the over $319,000 will create a new Kinnect to Family position to help foster youth and families who have open ongoing abuse or neglect cases.

“To fill gaps in services and to identify support systems within their kinship realm, and so if this child was at risk of being removed from their home that we could identify, hopefully, at kinship connection that the child could stay with versus having to come into foster care.”

The other hires will be community health workers with the Bridges to Wellness Pathways HUB, one at the JFS and the other for local schools.

“Better support the families and the individuals that we serve and to also to provide it to the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center. They place community health workers into the Tuscarawas County school districts.”

The grant is through the OneOhio Recovery Foundation following Ohio’s opioid settlement.

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