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Wraparound and Wellness: A Catalyst for Recovery
Grappling with the ever-growing population of youth experiencing opioid abuse in New Jersey necessitates bold action. Is getting back to the basics of wellness and community connectedness too basic for this complex dilemma? Wellness and community connectedness are essential components for a...
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Taking Care into the Streets to Reduce Harm and Save Lives: The Vital Role of Needle Exchange and Harm Reduction Services within the Healthcare Delivery System
Harm Reduction is rooted in acknowledging that a person who is an active drug user deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, including being offered safe access to clean syringes and naloxone. This work can be done while building trust and opening the door to recovery options. Harm reduction...
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Peers as an Effective Strategy for Engaging Individuals with Addictions in Recovery
As New York expands its Recovery Oriented System of Care (ROSC), the utilization of peers within hospital emergency rooms, addiction treatment, and recovery support providers, has demonstrated tremendous value, and opportunities to achieve enhanced engagement and retention of individuals in need of...
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CBHS IPA and CBC IPA Joint Initiatives to Increase Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT)
The New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS), as a recipient of a State Opioid Response Grant (SOR) from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) put out a grant with the objective of providing funding to provider networks to assess...
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Today’s Opioid Addiction and Overdose Epidemic: How We Can Make a Difference
The opioid addiction and overdose epidemic that has ravaged America for two decades now has left almost no one untouched. From 1999 to 2017, more than 400,000 people in the United States have died from overdoses related to opioids. According to a poll by the American Psychiatric Association,...
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Adding Recovery Professionals to the Continuum of Care
What is the purpose of our work, of all the prevention, intervention and therapy, all that merciful medical model and multi-volume DSM? The treatment plans? Aftercare? All this helping apparatus – what’s it for? Now, the agreed response is that “recovery” is our mutual goal irrespective...
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Strengthening the Addiction Workforce and Beyond
Over 20,000 professionals make up the Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Workforce in NYS. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the SUD workforce will grow at a much faster rate than other occupations in the country and in NYS. The Credentialed Alcoholism and...
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Seniors and Substance Use
After her husband died, Sandra began having trouble sleeping. She tried many over- the-counter remedies to help her sleep, but nothing worked. Sandra was hesitant to speak with her doctor about it as she knew that many prescription sleep aides were addictive, and she was concerned about becoming...
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A Geriatric Substance Abuse Recovery Program
Substance abuse among the geriatric population is often overlooked or ignored, despite the finding that almost a fifth of older adults misuse drugs and/or alcohol (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, 2012), and evidence showing the detrimental impact of substance abuse on elders’ quality of...
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Substance Misuse in Older Adults
In recognition of the State’s commitment to healthy aging, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) designated New York as the first Age-Friendly State in the nation. The Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) recognizes that a key component of healthy aging is...
