EL dorado equity collaborative - marshall medical center is located in the rural western sierra foothills of EL dorado county, california

Marshall medical center proses to partner with locally federally qualified health center, EL dorado community health center, and nonprofit access EL dorado to improve equitable access to substance use education, treatment and recovery support services for black, indigenous, and people of color (bipoc) communities. Infrastructure consisting of dedicated staff and organizational structures will be created to facilitate a systematic approach to identifying, designing, implementing and analyzing community-level interventions specifically informed by, and tailored for, EL dorado county bipoc communities, particularly latinz and native peoples. To increase the capacity to improve access to substance use education, treatment and recovery support services for bipoc communities in EL dorado county, the position of equity navigator will be created. The equity navigator will be a bipoc person that will embed within the community to provide direct outreach and support, moving seamlessly from working within each partner organization to being on the ground in the community. The equity navigator will use a harm reduction approach, truly meeting people where they are at to provide community-level assessments, brief interventions and navigation to services, without judgement or coercion, in the community, hospital and clinic settings. Further, equity representatives, bipoc professionals with passion for working with people who use drugs, will be hired from each partner organization to assist with community-level intervention design, implementation and analysis, as well as community outreach. To facilitate the meetings of program staff and interested community stakeholders for local data identification and assessment, intervention design, and implementation and analysis planning, the EL dorado equity collaborative (edec) will be created. Edec will develop evidence based data-driven interventions using proven systematic processes to improve access to substance use education, treatment, and recovery support services for bipoc communities. Edec will implement at least 3 community-level interventions. To ensure community involvement in intervention development, the latinx advisory group and native advisory group will be formed. The latinx advisory group and native advisory group will consist of latinx and native professionals and community champions who will provide community-level insight on needs, recommendations for interventions, and feedback on implementation and analysis plans. Directly engaging bipoc communities will be essential to the success of the edec program. To improve community outreach, edec will host at least 4 outreach events each program year in the community to provide targeted substance use education and access to treatment and recovery support services. Naloxone and fentanyl test strips will be distributed freely at all outreach events. Edec staff will also distribute point in time surveys to assess barriers to knowledge of substance use issues and treatment and recovery support services. Results of point in time surveys will be shared in the community and used to support intervention development. Social media campaigns and web presence will also be utilized to expand edec's reach into bipoc communities. The edec program will likely serve hundreds of bipoc community members each year, helping make EL dorado county a recovery ready community for everyone.