Ring the Bell: A Look into Community Engagement With Law Enforcement in Rural New HampshireRing the Bell: A Look into Community Engagement With Law Enforcement in Rural New Hampshire
Rural Roads- The RCORPodcast.
Police Chief Dave Suckling and counsellor Kim Haney talk about turning a rural New Hampshire town into a recovery-friendly community, where law enforcement and treatment providers work closely together. Their story highlights practical steps, shared training, and small rituals that help shift from punishment to support for people who use drugs.
39:21•28 May 2024
Ring the Bell: Law Enforcement, Recovery, and Rural Community Power in New Hampshire
Episode Overview
- A small rural police department shows how becoming a recovery-friendly community can normalise naloxone, overdose kits, and treatment referrals.
- Partnership between police and health providers can move people from a booking room or traffic stop into treatment within an hour.
- Visual, unscripted trainings on drug trends and paraphernalia help EMTs, outreach workers, and counsellors understand what they’re seeing and why people relapse.
- Consortium-based collaboration fills local gaps, from overdose prevention kits to “human care” packs for people entering treatment with very little.
- Simple rituals like ringing a bell for every entry into recovery reinforce that each attempt is a win, regardless of how many tries it takes.
“We were never going to arrest our way out of this problem in New Hampshire.”
Gain insights from experts and survivors on how rural communities and police can work side by side against overdose deaths. This conversation brings together Alexandria, New Hampshire Police Chief Dave Suckling and HealthFirst RCORP Project Director and counsellor Kim Haney, with host Tim Rabel, to show how partnership can change outcomes on the ground.
You’ll hear how a small rural police department became a “recovery-friendly community”, stocking every town vehicle with naloxone and setting up overdose prevention kits in the town hall. Kim explains how their consortium created bright green kits containing naloxone, breathing masks, and treatment information, and has helped distribute around 700 of them in their region. Dave shares the moment that changed everything for him: placing a young man in a body bag while his parents screamed in the kitchen.
That grief pushed him to decide, “we were never going to arrest our way out of this problem in New Hampshire,” and to build direct pathways from the booking room to treatment—sometimes getting someone into recovery within an hour of a police encounter. Kim adds the clinical and lived-experience lens, talking about 16 years in recovery and stressing why understanding the brain changes behind addiction helps first responders move from frustration to compassion.
Their joint training on street drug trends and paraphernalia started as “hidden in plain sight” for EMTs and has grown into a flexible, image-based session that outreach workers, counsellors and social workers now rely on.
From their bell-ringing ritual to celebrate every entry into treatment (no matter how many attempts it takes) to plans for a mobile “bedroom” trailer teaching parents what to look for, this episode speaks directly to anyone in rural recovery work who wonders if collaboration with law enforcement is actually possible. Could a simple bell and a shared purpose pull your community together too?
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