Medication-Based Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder in Jails and Prisons National Trends & Best Practices Webinar

The O'Neill Institute's Summer Series will highlight best practices, challenges, and opportunities for implementing medication based treatment in correctional facilities. In Session 1, speakers provided an overview of national trends and best practices.

The first event in our Summer Series highlighted national trends and best practices in medication-based treatment for opioid use disorder in corrections. Participants provided an important perspective on efforts to provide the standard of care for people with opioid use disorder. 

Camden County Warden Karen Taylor discussed her jail based medication treatment program, and how she developed the program despite initial hurdles. In her words, “we were not deterred by the naysayers.” 
 
A few other important points from the roundtable:

• Leadership is important, but just as important is employee culture. Training staff in the science of addiction is critical.
• Community based services must be available to people upon reentry to ensure continuity of care.
• Tracking outcomes of any medication-based program is an important part of sustained support for any program.

Future webinars in this series:

• Session 2 - June 29, 2020 - 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT,  Challenges and Opportunities in Implementing medication-based treatment for Opioid Use Disorder in Rural and Mid-Sized County Jails.
   
• Session 3 - July 2020 TBD, Data Collection and Outcome Measurement: Impact of Access to medication-based treatment for Opioid Use Disorder in Correctional Facilities.
   
• Session 4 - July 2020 TBD, Future State: Decarceration and Connection to Care