Apply Here for Available Funding
Background: After more than a dozen years of overpromotion, overprescribing, and excessive distribution of prescription opioids, companies responsible for tens of thousands of overdoses have agreed to a national financial settlement. With all 64 counties and nearly 100% of the municipalities signed onto the settlements, Colorado is set to receive more than $700 million when the settlements are finalized. Our state has a joint framework for distributing opioid dollars throughout the state, focusing most of the money on 19 regions.
The Region 16 Opioid Council, representing El Paso and Teller Counties, is seeking agencies to carry out a variety of programming to combat the opioid epidemic in our region. Specifically, the Region 16 Opioid Council received opioid settlement funding to address gaps and opportunities in prevention, treatment, and recovery services for people with opioid use disorder (OUD) as well as other co-occurring substance use disorders (SUDs) and mental illnesses in the region. After a detailed planning process to illuminate the region’s greatest needs pertaining to SUD, Region 16 has decided to dedicate dollars to the following five programs:
- Youth Prevention
- Community Prevention Education and Awareness
- MAT/MOUD
- Recovery Supports and Transitions
- Family Advocates
Context: Behavioral health comprises mental health and substance use disorder. It also encompasses behaviors and habits which influence one’s overall health and quality of life. Substance use disorders, including opioid use disorder, negatively impact an individual’s behavioral health. In the past twenty years, Colorado has experienced a 400% increase in opioid overdose deaths. The Counties that make up Region 16, El Paso and Teller, saw a similar trajectory in overdose deaths. From 2020 to 2021 alone, the region saw a 13% increase in overdoses.
Target Population: Ultimately, mental health and substance abuse issues, including opioids, affect every resident of El Paso and Teller Counties. The target populations for each program will be further specified in the scope of work below. However, the target population for all of Region 16’s settlement dollars include residents of all age groups, racial and ethnic backgrounds, socioeconomic standings, sexual orientations and gender identities, disability statuses, primary languages, and healthcare literacies. The most successful respondents will address how their program(s) will reach people equally across the region. We recognize that all applicants will not address all populations, but the winning bids will address unique barriers faced by people who have been historically underserved in their particular service sphere.
*Submit questions to info@pikespeakregion16.com with the subject line “Question: Region 16 Opioid Abatement Grant Application – [Organization Name]”
**Submit budget to info@pikespeakregion16.com with the subject line “Budget: Region 16 Opioid Abatement Grant Application – [Organization Name]”
Descriptions for 5 SOWs
A scope of work for each of the five programs we seek to fund is listed below. All submitted proposals should fall into one or more of the following categories to address the priority areas identified by our Opioid Council. Applicants may apply for one or multiple scopes. Depending on the applicant pool, the Council is open to making more than one award per program.
For all scopes presented below, special consideration will be given to programs that:
- Serve the unhoused, rural, or justice involved populations
- Are culturally responsive
- Serve both El Paso and Teller Counties
The goal of this focus area is to support OUD and SUD prevention education and awareness for young people in El Paso and Teller Counties. The ROAC hopes to use this funding to support youth prevention efforts that help to increase protective factors, reduce risk factors, or divert youth already involved in substance use.
The ROAC is seeking applications in this focus area that:
- Decrease youth substance use
- Decrease risky behaviors among youth, increase protective factors
- Increase prosocial behavior
- Increase social resistance skills
- Decrease faulty perceptions on drug use (normative education)
The goal of this focus area is to support community wide prevention, education, and awareness raising across El Paso and Teller Counties. While youth prevention will focus on young people, this program will focus on the community at large. The ROAC hopes to use this funding to support any evidence-based programming that helps to: increase community awareness of available treatment, harm reduction, recovery resources, primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention, and anti-stigma campaigns. Applicants in this area should focus on resources targeted to the general public or other targeted populations rather than youth.
The ROAC is seeking applications in this focus area that:
- Have a broad engagement with programming. Please tell us the number of people you expect to reach.
- Increase service utilization. Please explain how your work will increase the number of people seeking treatment, recovery, prevention, or overdose prevention and education services.
- Decrease negative outcomes related to drug use in the community such as fatal overdoses, substance related hospitalizations, criminal justice involvement etc.
- Decrease SUD related community stigma.
- Increase community protective factors (access to resources).
Projects that consider the following will be prioritized:
- Community partners that provide prevention and education specifically to address: increased awareness and knowledge of opioid risks, safe disposal, harm reduction and Health Care Provider (HCP) education, and/or alternative pain management.
- Healthcare providers provide education to community and other healthcare providers on alternatives to pain management.
- Education on evidence-based opioid addiction treatment services and counseling, as well as support services that aid in the recovery journey.
- Proposals that emphasize community collaboration in a comprehensive and sustainable response to opioid misuse.
- Gather and use data to guide all prevention decisions—from identifying which substance misuse problems to address in their communities, to choosing the most appropriate ways to address these problems, to determining whether communities are making progress
The goal of this focus area is to provide Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT), also called Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) to people with OUD in the region. The program will include some variation of mobile MAT to serve rural areas of the region including Teller County and Southeast El Paso County.
The ROAC is seeking applications in this focus area that:
- Increase the number of providers offering MOUD treatment.
- Increase the number of individuals accessing MOUD treatment.
- Provide supportive services for individuals engaged in MOUD treatment.
Applicants must:
- Provide Medication Assisted Treatment to All Areas (Mobile and Institutionalized)
- Incorporated
- Rural (Mountains rural and plains rural)
- Unincorporat ed
- Developed unincorporated
- Provide Transitional Navigation
- Detention Centers (Discharge Planners)
- Detox
- Hospital Systems
The goal of this focus area is to support people seeking recovery and in transitions (detox to treatment, justice system to community, residential treatment to sober living etc.). Funding can include but is not limited to supporting peers, navigators, recovery community organization development, and crisis intervention. The ROAC hopes to use this funding to support programs across the continuum of care that are targeted at increasing the number of successful transitions of care, providing access to services that support long-term recovery, or both.
The ROAC is seeking applications in this focus area that:
- Produce measurable increases in one or more of SAMHSA’s 8 Dimensions of Wellness (or similar recovery capital measurement tool)
- Increase the number of clients successfully transitioning between levels of care, or between justice involved and community-based care
- Increase the number of peer coaches
The ROAC is seeking programs that identify gaps in recovery supports and transitions of care. Programs that will be considered include:
- Detox to treatment
- Justice system to community
- Residential treatment to sober living
- Transition from structured treatment to long term recovery
- Substance Use Disorder Crisis intervention to the next appropriate level of care
- Supporting peer coaches
- Training new peers
- Expanding existing peer support programming
- Supporting care coordination activities including support for affected friends and family
- Recovery community organization development or expansion
- Recovery friendly workplace initiatives
The goal of this program is to provide direct services to survivors and witnesses encountered by El Paso and Teller County. Family Advocates will coordinate crisis intervention for surviving loved ones of overdoses and poisonings, assess the needs of the families, determine the assistance needs, and provide referral support and follow-up. Specifically, the ROAC seeks to fund a program that helps victims/survivors and affected family members navigate the legal processes and connect them with community services to reduce the impact of the Opioid epidemic on affected members in our community.
The ROAC is seeking applications in this focus area that:
- Increase access to services and support after incident
- Decrease generational challenges with trauma, SUD, mental health
- Increase autonomy and empowerment for victims
- Decrease fear and anxiety for surviving family members
- Increase efficiency in collaborative services among service providers
The funded program will address the following:
- Assistance with scene clean-up and walking through the insurance process for this step, if applicable
- Assistance with planning the funeral.
- Crisis intervention on-scene and during follow-up
- Individualized referrals to necessary outside entities and resources on a case-by-case basis
- Case status updates and information on press releases, if applicable
- Access to case related details and updates
- Direct communication with detectives working the case.
- Understanding resources based on the individual case details.
- First responders on scene and provide death notifications as applicable.
- No confidentiality issues with families or outside entities
- Trauma informed approaches taught.
- Ethical boundaries and understanding of boundaries
