STory Data

Between December 2018 and April 2019, the Consortium conducted a series of listening sessions with individuals in recovery in each of the three counties. A total of 26 individuals participated in the sessions across all three counties.

The listening sessions were conducted to ensure that the planning and needs assessment process included the voices of those community members most affected by substance use disorder and opioid use disorder (SUD/OUD), focused on these individuals’ experiences and points-of-view around what helps and hurts their ability to access SUD/OUD prevention, treatment, and recovery supports, as well as what changes to the system they would recommend.

Key themes were identified around what is helping efforts to address substance use in the three-county region, what is hurting these efforts, and what could work to do better. These themes were shared with the Consortium to inform strategic planning.

On the importance of supporting local and regional primary prevention-focused activities, particularly in schools:

“…Someone like me could tell a child it’s okay to tell someone [they need help]. If I heard that as a child maybe my life would have went a different route.”
- Listening session participant

On the importance of assessing and addressing substance use disorder and opioid use disorder workforce shortages in the tri-county region:

“…They can detox at a hospital, but there’s…a desperate need of mental health and addiction services.”
- Key informant interview participant

On the importance of increasing local capacity to connect individuals with substance use disorder and opioid use disorder to community-based resources for treatment and recovery:

“I've been through thousands of hours of court-ordered stuff…Even then, all those thousands of hours and all that, it wasn't nothing like when I finally walked into the room at [recovery group]. They just hold a whole different atmosphere, a different feel…it was the compassion that surrounds you.”
- Listening session participant

“One of the things that hurts is not having an alternate [place to go after getting released from jail, etc.] If you don’t have something else to go to, another venue, then you go back to what you know.”
- Listening session participant

On the importance of increasing access to medication-assisted treatment and other evidence-based substance use disorder/ opioid use disorder treatment:

“If there was a clinic here I’d gotten help a long time ago.”
- Listening session participant

“There needs to be local facilities that can help [people] in this community.”
- Listening session participant

On the importance of implementing evidence-based harm reduction interventions, particularly through local partnerships with providers, law enforcement, and first responders:

“[A] needle exchange would cut back on diseases and the transfer of [Hepatitis C and HIV] people have.”
- Listening session participant

“I think that it’s important to go outside these doors, to talk to law enforcement and gain recovery allies, say: ‘Look at me, recovery does happen.’ I’m very out and about about my recovery. I feel like if I hide it, I’m ashamed. And I’m not gonna be ashamed because I’m alive.”
- Listening session participant