Wilkes county proposes to implement a program entitled increasing access to therapeutic, reentry, and peer-assisted recovery support services and reduction of overdoses in wilkes county

This $999,900 federal Project Grant award from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) under the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and other Substances Use Program (CFDA 16.838) will support Wilkes County, North Carolina in implementing a comprehensive program to address the impact of opioids, stimulants, and other substances on individuals and communities.

The key activities funded under this 3-year award include: 1) Providing two peer support specialists to work with the county's community paramedics in responding to substance use-related emergencies and overdoses, 2) Facilitating behavioral health training for the community paramedics and peer support specialists, 3) Enhancing the county's jail-based medication-assisted treatment (MAT) program by adding two peer support specialists, and 4) Establishing an overdose fatality review team to analyze data and develop harm reduction recommendations. The project also includes research and evaluation components to generate publishable findings and lessons learned to improve evidence-based responses to substance use disorder, opioid use disorder, and overdoses.

The program seeks to reduce the impact of illicit opioids, stimulants, and other substances on individuals and communities, reduce the number of overdose deaths, increase multi-agency collaborations for fighting substance use disorder, and increase the capacity of the collaborative partners to deploy evidence-based deflection practices, including through integration of peer support services. Project activities include: 1) providing two peer support specialists to support the work of the countys community paramedics in responding to substance use-related emergencies and overdose cases. This will help, to promote treatment uptake, support long-term recovery, achieve harm reduction and secondary prevention, and implement deflection; 2) facilitating behavioral health training for wilkes countys community paramedics and the peer support specialists to build their collaborative capacity to address CO-existing mental health components of substance use-related emergencies and overdose cases; 3) enhancing the implementation of the wilkes county jail-based medication assisted treatment (mat) program and adding two peer support specialists in collaboration with the lazarus project; and 4) establishing an overdose fatality review team to gather and analyze data on individual overdose deaths, to identify patterns and risk factors, and develop actionable harm reduction recommendations for reducing overdose deaths. Wilkes county proposes research and evaluation of these four initiatives, which will result in publishable findings and sharable learnings to help inform and improve evidence-based responses to substance use disorder, opioid use disorder, CO-existing behavioral health issues, and overdoses, and strengthen implementation of mat with embedded peer support.