Our region of western Kentucky, like many rural places, is faced with a ongoing and ever-changing substance use crisis that we are, by-and-large, woefully under-resourced to deal with. While some counties have implemented successful programs, such as drug courts, they are often short of capacity to provide recovery capital (the Kentucky Senate Bill 90 pilot program notwithstanding) and are often not integrated into a holistic effort to address substance use at every potential opportunity for intervention.
The WKSUC was established to bring together existing resources and develop what is needed but not currently available, in order to facilitate evidence-based best practices in addressing SUD and mental health (as they are often co-occurring and even when mental health issues are not tied to SUD, the overall process for dealing with it, particularly in relation to law enforcement, criminal justice and long-term treatment and integration into society is similar. We propose to implement proven processes, adapted from rural communities much like ours.
The current director of WKSUC is a fellow of the Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance Reaching Rural Program, which was designed to help stakeholders in rural communities develop collaborative approaches to SUD/BH issues.
We propose to address these issues beginning with public and stakeholder education, stigma reduction and prevention, using existing programs as a starting point to create an integrated program that can provide the best possible information, using the best possible mechanisms of dissemination to all corners of our region.
We will utilize proven methods of harm reduction to limit the consequences for those currently suffering under SUD and BH issues. There is a spectrum of harm reduction practices that work, we just need to scale them and get them active throughout the region.
We support the creation of regional rapid response teams to supplement law enforcement during calls that potentially involve SUD/BH issues.
We support the establishment of a regional crisis evaluation/stabilization facility to provide appropriate initial care and evaluation of individuals in need. We further support the creation of additional treatment assets, long- and short-term to fill unmet need as well as transportation and other logistical supports for treatment.
We propose to facilitate the adoption of the sequential intercept model for justice-involved people with SUD/BH issues.
We support the availability of treatment and support services for individuals in incarceration, to include intake counselors to create initial SUD/BH summaries of people entering jail for judges to use during arraignment and any potential later legal proceedings.
We support the establishment of re-entry services for everyone, but particularly for people with SUD/BH who are leaving incarceration. It has been clearly demonstrated that effective re-entry services have a huge impact on decreasing overdoses and recidivism and enabling previously-incarcerated people to successfully re-integrate into society.
There are associated activities, such as adopting GPS location software to identify areas of increased SUD-related incidents, street outreach programs, transitional housing and centers for recovery capital that are all part of this overall effort. It’s a lot, but it’s all needed, because the gaps are where we lose people.
These procedures work, and they are cheaper than continuing to pay for the consequences of inaction, over and over again. We can’t continue to leave people behind, if they can be helped up. We can’t get them all, but we can get some now and some later on. Each success is a chance to break the cycle for adults, and even more importantly, their kids.
