Podcast Transcript
Introductory music
Announcement Isabel Byon 0:00
The New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports, or OASAS, provides this podcast as a public service. Thoughts and opinions expressed do not necessarily represent or reflect those of the agency or state. This is Addiction: The Next Step.
Host Jerry Gretzinger 0:17
Hey everybody, thanks for joining us for another edition of Addiction: The Next Step, the podcast brought to you by the New York State Offices of Addiction Services and Supports. I'm your host, Jerry Gretzinger, and today, well, today, we are talking prevention, and we have a special guest who's going to help us talk about some really great services and programs that are out there that are all prevention-focused, and that person is Dr. Felecia Pullen. She is here from. Tell us the name of the organization you're with.
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 0:43
Safe in Harlem
Host Jerry Gretzinger: 0:44
Safe in Harlem, and a lot of good work happening with Safe in Harlem. Before we get into the specifics, Felecia, I want you to tell me about your background. How long have you been working in the addiction field?
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 0:55
I've been in the field for about 12 years, so next to some I'm the baby in the field. But it's been such an amazing journey. And it started out with my own journey in addiction myself, and so, knowing that part of my youth was definitely infiltrated with not only drug use myself but a very normalized drug culture, I thought it was really important when I started this not-for-profit that I focused on prevention of the onset of use for teens and youth.
Host Jerry Gretzinger: 1:30
Oh, so using your own experience to be able to inform the work you want to do for others?
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 1:35
Absolutely
Host Jerry Gretzinger: 1:36
So let's start there. So what sort of experiences did you have or did you witness as life progressed to the point where you started working in the field that you said you know what? This is something I want to address. I want to work towards helping others with.
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 1:52
Yeah, I just want to start by saying that this field chose me. I did not choose this field, and that's probably why I'm so happy in it. It was not something that I pursued for any reason other than answering the calls that were given to me. But I was born and raised in Harlem and, having been born and raised in Harlem, I had the privilege of being raised by the village if you will, it is the village of Harlem, so I was raised by the village, and I was also raised at a time where the drug culture greatly impacted the people.
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 2:29
And specifically, you know, when I think back on my childhood and this will give you a little bit of context of how old I am watching, you know, the men in our community return from Vietnam, um, addicted to heroin, and the normalcy of walking down the street and seeing people everywhere in Harlem, no matter where you went, who were heroin-addicted. And so that was something that I, as I look back, I could recognize that as a little girl. And then, of course, you know, having survived the war on drugs, the crack epidemic, having become addicted to crack cocaine myself, that was just a part of the journey and the story that led me to do this work, and so I knew that not only were the individuals themselves impacted but whole families and communities. So it became like this community-level trauma that I knew I needed to come back and try to do my little piece, if you will,
Host Jerry Gretzinger: 3:38
Yeah. All right. So then, Safe in Harlem becomes a thing. It becomes what you're working on, what you're doing. Talk to us about Safe in Harlem, what it does, what you hope to achieve with it.
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 3:50
Yeah. Safe in Harlem, is beautiful because it is teen-led and teen-guided, but it is also supported by a 12-sector coalition and so the first grant that we ever received at this not-for-profit was one through SAMHSA, which is now at the CDC, but it was the drug-free communities grant and because I was born and raised in Harlem, I focused on that one zip code of 10027, which is central Harlem, which was the area that I was familiar, the area that I was born and raised in, and I knew, I really knew the demographics well because I am the demographic. And that work, and supported by SAMHSA and now supported by OASAS as well, allows us to do evidence-based programs in schools. We do programming for preschoolers in school to teach emotion regulation, in middle school to teach conflict resolution and we work with parents doing parenting skills enhancement classes.
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 4:55
But there's community-based work that's also done, like the conceptualization and the actualization of community murals that young people who have been a part of from concept to wall can still walk by and say I did that. We have done 16,000 door hangers on individual apartment doors in nine NYCHA developments and, again, team-led and coalition-supported. So it's amazing work. It's probably some of the best work that I do.
Host Jerry Gretzinger: 5:33
Yeah. And so I know you say challenging work and rewarding. I think sometimes, especially today, the work of prevention can be so challenging, right? I mean, what do you feel is like one of the biggest challenges was being able to get to people early enough to be able to share the message with them? You know, hey, it's, you know, an ounce of prevention with a pound of cure like they say. Right, I mean, what is one of the biggest struggles?
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 5:59
I think you know, especially when we're talking about small children, some of the biggest hurdles are getting into the schools right. There has to be a willingness by the principal, by the PTA, by the counselors, to want this kind of work in their schools, by the DOE right, and so some of the hurdles that we have faced, even in trying to assess what's happening in the community, has been more structural than anything else, or systemic right than anything else. Other than that, like I think that if we're waiting too late and, based on the data that we've been able to collect, if we're waiting to try and speak with a young person who is in the 11th or 12th grade, typically the experimentation has already happened and so we really need to start with our young children and giving them empowerment and hope and drive and self-actualization in ways that they don't always get.
Host Jerry Gretzinger: 7:05
So I want to ask you the next question, too, because hopefully people will be hearing this or seeing this and saying, yeah, you know what? I think this is absolutely correct. We need to share information sooner or earlier, and I want to start at home. I want to start giving the right message. What can they do? Do you have a website? Or how they can get more information.
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 7:21
We absolutely have a website. It's called safeinharlem.org, and Brick and Mortar is located at 289 St Nicholas Avenue, between 124th and 125th, and it's open on Monday to Friday from 10 to 5.
Host Jerry Gretzinger: 7:40
Great, and I'm sure that's the first step you recommend to people, right? Make contact, go on? Yeah, Great, Felecia. Thanks so much for sitting down and chatting with us today.
Guest Dr. Felecia Pullen: 7:49
Thank you.
Host Jerry Gretzinger: 7:49
Great to have you on and, uh, yeah, this Addiction: The Next Step. Folks, if you want some more information about supports and services that are available, you can also go to our website. It's oasas.ny.gov, o-a-s-a-s, dot N-Y, dot G-O-V, and our Hopeline 877-8-HOPE-N-Y. I'm Jerry Gretzinger, your host. Until we see you again, be well.