REVERE — The business community is taking aim at addiction.
A free breakfast forum on opioid addiction and its effect on local businesses and employees will be held at the Comfort Inn at 85 American Legion Highway in Revere Wednesday at 8 a.m.
Massachusetts Secretary for Health and Human Services, MaryLou Sudders will be the keynote speaker for the event titled The Opioid Epidemic: Our Businesses and Workplaces.
Event check-in and breakfast will be from 8 to 8:30 a.m. and the program will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
The event, presented by the Revere Chamber of Commerce along with Chelsea and Winthrop’s chambers, will focus on local businesses, according to Revere Chamber of Commerce President Michael Nicastro.
“We thought it would be a good idea to work with other chambers to get businesses aware of the crisis that is drug addiction, how to recognize employees affected, and get access to programs they may not have known about,” he said.
Some of the topics for discussion include: how to speak to an employee who may be affected; distributing substance use information in the workplace; legal considerations, and more.
The forum will also include several speakers, including business owners who employ people in recovery and employees in recovery.
Revere Mayor Brian Arrigo said that the event will talk about the importance of hiring recoveries and ending the stigma that surrounds them.
“Obviously opioid addiction has been a huge epidemic and has hit our communities,” he said. “This is part of the effort of dealing with it.”
“You want to do everything you can to help employees through this disease and keep them as workers,” Nicastro said. “We’re hoping for a great turnout.
“We encourage as many businesses as possible to come out. We want this to be a resource for everyone.”
