This Listening Session addresses the emotional, cognitive, and professional impact of opioid-related crises on those working in prevention, treatment, and recovery, including clinicians, peers, first responders, and systems leaders. Drawing from suicide postvention frameworks and lived experience, the session explores the invisible injuries of care work, such as compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and moral distress. Attendees will hear from colleagues who have navigated the grief and ethical ambiguity that follow overdose loss or suicide, while also gaining insight into sustainable work-life integration practices and emotional recovery strategies.

Season three of The NOCE Dose, hosted by Bianca D. McCall, centers the people doing the work—and the often invisible costs of caring. This season amplifies the voices of clinicians, peer support specialists, first responders, crisis teams, and community providers across Nevada who show up every day in response to the opioid crisis. Through powerful testimonies and expert insight, we explore how identity, access, and systemic expectations shape who receives support—and who suffers in silence. Each episode offers practical strategies to sustain the workforce, highlighting supervision, peer connection, physical health, and realistic approaches to self-care. Because supporting those on the frontlines isn’t optional—it’s essential.

In this episode of The NOCE Dose, we are joined by Amy Thatcher, a speech-language pathologist and neonatal feeding specialist with over fifteen years of experience supporting medically fragile and opioid-exposed infants. Together, we explore what truly family-centered care looks like in the NICU—from dismantling stigma and clinical bias to building trust with birthing parents and extended families. Amy shares why “meeting people where they are” is not enough if judgment remains in the room, and how small, intentional practices—calling babies by name, modeling caregiving, and inviting families into the healing process—can radically improve outcomes for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).

The conversation also dives into the long-term developmental implications of early opioid exposure, including feeding, oral-motor development, communication milestones, and theory of mind. We discuss the impact of the Eat, Sleep, Console model, the importance of early intervention services, and how awe, transparency, and compassionate education can quiet shame and empower caregivers. This episode is a powerful reminder that healing begins not only with clinical tools, but with humanity, trust, and the courage to break silence—one baby, one family, and one conversation at a time.