One Voice Inc.

The CARE initiative empowers rural Wyoming County residents and their families to become happy, healthy & whole in both their physical and spiritual lives by strengthening and expanding area Substance Use Disorder (SUD) & Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) prevention, treatment & recovery services. The broad multi-sectoral CARE Consortium will sustainably address prevention, treatment & recovery support to enhance treatment access & help individuals and the community to move towards recovery. Proposed Services: Prevention is addressed via supporting and determining an sustainability plan for the Future Leaders high school prevention program, expanding naloxone training/provision & drug take-back boxes in rural areas with limited access to emergency medical services. Treatment is addressed via strengthening referral partnerships, expanding usage of a 24-hour crisis line & implementing a recovery support mobile app. Recovery support is addressed via hiring a peer recovery coach to provide peer recovery support services to community members and those exiting both the criminal justice system & inpatient care, hiring a Community Health Liaison to work with the peer recovery coach to reduce community stigma against peer recovery coaches, and initiating a workforce peer position to provide work experience to those in recovery who cannot find community jobs due to stigma against hiring individuals in recovery. Addressed Needs: The target pop. suffers from crushing rates of opioid use, overdoses & opioid Rx, poor social determinants of health (education/poverty/food insecurity/mental health/unemployment), lack of transportation, access to Telehealth resources (broadband) & data waiver physicians, poor child welfare, high stigma, low trust in medical professionals & often ignores prevention. The CARE target population is individuals who are at risk for, have been diagnosed with, or are in treatment/recovery for OUD, their families/caregivers, and community members all of whom reside in Wyoming County, West Virginia, a HRSA-designated rural area as defined by the Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer. Special care will be taken to serve rural racial and ethnic minorities, people experiencing homelessness, pregnant women, the elderly, youth, adolescents, people with special needs, and families with multigenerational drug use or who have been impacted by the drug epidemic as these populations have historically suffered from poorer health outcomes, health disparities, and other inequities compared to the rest of the target population.