Carry-Forward: Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program (Project RISE)

Project Title: Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program, opportunity number HRSA-24-016 Project RISE (Resilience In an Opioid Stricken Environment) Applicant Organization Name: University of Kentucky, Research Foundation Address: 500 South Limestone, 109 Kinkead Hall, Lexington, KY 40526-0001 Website Address: http://ruralhealth.med.uky.edu Project Director Name: Dr. Frances Feltner Project Manager Name: Caleb Williams Project Apprenticeship Manager: Mike Nix Contact Phone Numbers: 606-439-3557 Email Address: [email protected] [email protected] and [email protected] Through-out the state of Kentucky the level of awareness and availability of opioid use disorder treatment has dramatically increased over the last decade. Despite this huge increase in available services, services targeting the family of those afflicted are nearly non-existent. This application is in request of support needed for specialized paraprofessionals who will be trained to work with the families of those afflicted by an opioid use disorder. The ultimate goal is to combat the high prevalence of opioid use disorder through-out the state of Kentucky. More specifically, to train substance use-disorder paraprofessionals how to address concomitant issues experienced by family members and the children of individuals that are diagnosed with OUD. Project RISE (Resilience In an opioid Stricken Environment) will utilize the core peer support specialist and community health worker certification trainings to serve as the starting point of a didactic series. Specialized family support, youth resiliency, and family advocacy trainings will be developed and facilitated to better prepare the newly cross-certified paraprofessionals to address the broad scope of issues that are faced by the loved ones and children of individuals afflicted with OUD. Grant funding will be used to provide participants with the core trainings needed to become dually-certified peer support specialist/community health workers as part of Level 1. Level 1 will also consist of three months experiential field training provided on-site with behavior health/treatment OUD employer partners. A twelve-month apprenticeship with a OUD employer partner will serve as Level 2. During this apprenticeship, apprentices will focus on the family members of the OUD clients, specifically their children. Apprentices will be required to complete 144 training hours and 1856 on-site work hours, totaling 2000 cumulative hours within 12 months Apprentices will utilize their training and lived experience to provide family members with health coaching and emotional support while assisting them to navigate available wrap-around services. The overall goal is to improve the health and wellbeing of clients with OUD and provide access to resources families need to “RISE”.