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Torrington residents Ashlee Thomas, right, and Carly Roberts, founders of OD Reduction CT, are joining forces with the Litchfield County Opiate Task Force, assisting other substance abuse treatment and prevention agencies by handing out clean needles, Narcan kits and other resources for those who use illicit drugs.

Ashlee Hall and Carly Roberts, founders of OD Reduction CT, are joining forces with the Litchfield County Opiate Task Force, assisting other substance abuse treatment and prevention agencies by handing out clean needles, Narcan kits and other resources for those who use illicit drugs.

TORRINGTON — Ashlee Thomas has had more than her share of heartache.

Born to drug-addicted parents, she spent much of her childhood in foster homes, group homes and shelters. Her father served time in jail for his involvement in a robbery, she said, and she was taken from her mother. Today, her mother still struggles with substance abuse, and her father is somewhere in Maine, last she heard.

Those difficult beginnings eventually led the 27-year-old Torrington resident and her friend, Carly Roberts, to start an initiative called OD Reduction Connecticut, or odreductionct on TikTok, where they post videos and information on how people addicted to illicit substances can find clean supplies and Narcan kits — and help, if they want it.

Thomas’ son’s father recently died of overdose, and she said she is dedicating OD Reduction CT to him and the millions of others who didn’t survive their last drug use.

Thomas has applied for state certification, which she said would allow her to apply for grants to purchase syringes, drug testing strips for heroin, cocaine and fentanyl, and Narcan, a drug used to reverse an overdose.

“I am printing up information brochures with resources for people, and I’ve done some needle cleanups in Torrington and Winsted, because kids don’t need to see drug stuff all over the ground,” she said. “I just want to help these people, so they can get the help they need.”

Thomas and Roberts plan to visit neighborhoods in Winsted and Torrington and hold weekly syringe exchanges and have a biohazard container for disposal.

Losing her son’s father, whose name she kept anonymous, was a blow for Thomas; they were engaged to be married. “If he was administered Narcan, he might have survived and he’d be here now,” she said. “I’ve lost a lot of people. ... Everyone has. I lost my cousin.

“My father served 16 years in prison because he got involved in gangs, and did armed robbery while he was under the influence of drugs,” she said. “My mom lost me to DCF for almost all of my childhood; it has affected me a lot. When I think back on when I saw my mom heavily using, I saw her overdose. This was before there was Narcan. If we’d had that, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

Addiction has played a huge role in her life, she said. “I look at people struggling with drugs and I just see them going through it,” she said. “They just need some help.”

Like the Litchfield County Opiate Task Force, McCall Center for Behavioral Health and Greenwoods Addiction Outreach, Thomas says everyone should have a supply of Narcan handy to save lives.

Those three agencies are doing much of the same thing Thomas is proposing.

The task force as a team of “rovers” who visit areas known for illicit drug activity and talk with the people they find, giving them information and help if they accept it.

Lauren Pristo, director of the Opiate Task Force, welcomed the idea of a new team of volunteers getting involved in their efforts. The task force is a community partner with McCall, Greenwoods, Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, youth service bureaus and other agencies that work with schools, social service organizations and volunteers to help individuals and families with support and harm reduction, providing supplies, information and avenues to treatment.

“We’re interested in talking to Ashlee,” Pristo said. “I appreciate people with stories like Ashlee’s; people are coming into this kind of work with a broken heart, and wanting to help people in the community. They are our most powerful advocates.”

She wants to be sure Thomas and Roberts understand the help that’s already available.

“People come up with ideas like this, and they don’t often know there’s systems already in place,” she said. “They see a need and they want to take action.”

The Rover Program is what connects the different agencies’ efforts, Pristo said. “The Rover is the toolbox, with all the information in it. Ashlee could be a rover, do the work, and track her supplies through the task force. That way, it’s a central, coordinated effort.”

In May, Sarah Toomey from Greenwoods Addiction Services reported an overdose spike, and said it was because the drug fentanyl is being mixed with heroin and cocaine without users’ knowledge.

Toomey, lead community outreach and recovery navigator with Greenwoods Addiction Outreach, said the current rate of overdoses is about 25 per month in Litchfield County. The substance abuse outreach program is part of Greenwoods Counseling Referrals, which provides mental health services to individuals and families throughout the Northwest Corner.

Pristo said another spike recently was reported. “I know of three overdose deaths in the past week,” she said. “The reports of fatal overdoses is often delayed, because they have to be confirmed by the medical examiner. Sometimes it takes awhile to find out what happened.”

Emily M. Olson is the community editor for the Torrington Register Citizen, the New Haven Register and the Middletown Press.

She is a 1997 graduate of Western Connecticut State University with a degree in English and a minor in journalism.

She started her career at the Patent Trader newspaper in Westchester County, NY in 1998. After a brief period as a reporter with the Register Citizen in Torrington in 1999, she joined the former Housatonic Publications group as a reporter. She was managing editor of the former Litchfield Enquirer and helped run the weekly newspapers at Housatonic and the Litchfield County Times. She returned to the Register Citizen in 2009.