My name is Kaya Bothe and I am a rising junior studying Health, Science, Society & Policy and International & Global Studies. This summer I am interning with Lines for Life, a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon that focuses on preventing substance abuse and suicide. Lines for Life has many different crisis lines (youth line, military helpline, suicide lifeline, alcohol and drug helpline, and senior loneliness helpline), as well as a prevention team. I am interning with the prevention team, which works to combat many social injustices that the residents of Oregon experience. Suicide and drug addiction affect different groups of people disproportionately, and Lines for Life works to support all groups of people, as well as to work with the broader community to change policies and educate the public and health professionals.
Throughout my internship thus far, I have not stopped learning and I am responsible for many different tasks and projects. In the first two weeks of my internship I was given lots of tasks right from the get-go helping to finalize and plan the Oregon Opioids + Other Drugs, Pain + Addiction Treatment (OPAT) conference. I was invited to attend the conference and listen to the speakers as well as help to put it on during the third week of my internship. The week before the conference I read the book Beautiful Boy by David Sheff, who was the keynote speaker of the conference. I got to meet him as well as help sell his books at the book signing. Along with attending a large amount of presentations over the three-day conference, I also was able to learn about what it takes to put on a conference of this scale and was able to help with registration and other day-of needs.
Now that I am back from the OPAT conference, I am focusing on research to create a website for the state to provide statistics and resources to Oregon residents on suicide. We are going to separate the website into different pages. We will have information for health care professionals and teachers, as well as different high-risk groups such as Native Americans, elders, youth, people of color, veterans, the LGBTQ+ community and more. I have a huge role in this project as I have been asked to research these different groups of people and find Oregon-specific statistics. I will then eventually create a fact sheet composed of all my research. I am also in charge of gathering resources that will be added to the different pages. After I have finished the research, I will compile everything and write it up into something that eventually be put on the website.
Along with research and helping my coworkers with their projects, I have been invited to many different events and outings. For instance, just today, I went to a press conference where Congresswoman Bonamici spoke about the new legislation, The Safe Disposal of Opioids Act, just passed by Washington County, the first county in Oregon to require pharmaceutical companies to provide a safe and accessible way for people to dispose of unused and/or expired prescription opioid pills. This was really interesting to me and I got to see many important people, along with the CEO of Lines for Life, speak in front of people and news crews. This legislation is a huge step for Oregon, as hopefully other counties will follow and the whole state can in the future provide safe drop boxes. I have learned that there are so many different steps that need to be taken to end the opioid epidemic, and this is just the starting point with so much more work to be done.
Throughout all of this, I am learning more than I imagined I ever could at this internship, and my interest in the field is continuously growing as I see the inspiring work Lines for Life is doing to combat suicide and the opioid addiction epidemic.