Access to care - the access to care project is a collaborative effort between behavioral health solutions of south texas, the hidalgo county drug court (court #8), and baylor college of medicine to…

Access to care - the access to care project is a collaborative effort between behavioral health solutions of south texas, the hidalgo county drug court (court #8), and baylor college of medicine to ensure a seamless continuum of care for individuals involved in the court system due to a drug-related arrest. This full continuum will begin under the purview of the hidalgo county correctional system and will address barriers to health, wellness, and sustained life in the community by addressing substance use and mental health concerns, trauma needs, recovery support, employment, and parenting services. The project will provide services for up to two years from a chronic care perspective and specifically expand substance use disorder treatment and outreach capacity while enhancing treatment services for low-income minority individuals who have a history of substance use disorder and experience multiple barriers to accessing substance use treatment services. While the project will serve individuals throughout the RIO grande valley, low income and under resourced areas of hidalgo county will be targeted due to high levels of need and low levels of service access. The proposed project will provide culturally appropriate, trauma-informed services to the population of focus who will receive evidence-based substance use, mental health, and trauma interventions, as well as, linkage to an array of medical and recovery support services. The project's overarching goals are to: 1) identify, engage, and support individuals who are involved in the court system and have a substance use disorder to access the services needed to successfully transition to health and wellness; and 2) solidify and augment the system of care for individuals involved in the court system to remain and thrive in the community following a non-violent drug-related arrest. The project will combine the twelve key components of drug courts with evidence-based interventions including trauma-informed care, medication-assisted treatments, gender-specific curriculum-based services with all interventions rooted in the spirit of motivational interviewing. Within the target population, the project will achieve the following individual-level objectives: 1) increase access to 60 individuals per year to a continuum of substance use treatment and recovery support services; 2) reduce the use of illicit drugs by participants over a six month period between intake and follow-up by 30%; 3) increase engagement in recovery support services demonstrated by the retention of 80% of participants at six months post intake; 4) increase self-sufficiency and psychosocial functioning within six months of program entry with measurable increases between intake and follow-up in: employment (20% increase), housing stability (25% increase), legal problems/criminal justice involvement (10% decrease), and health status (25% increase); and 5) within six months post intake, decrease the frequency of self-reported mental health and trauma symptoms by 20%. The systems-level objective is to demonstrate a formalized and expanded collaboration through the signing of twenty (20) mous and the holding of monthly collaboration meetings among partners for the duration of the project. The impact of this collaboration will be to improve the target population's access to support services to make a measurable impact on access issues that drive health disparities impacting the RGV. To this end, 300 individuals (60 per year) will be served during the five-year project.