Local Mental Health and Recovery Board Receives State Grant

The Portage County Mental Health and Recovery Board (MHRB) is implementing new programs to help addicts in their journey through recovery after receiving a state grant.

Drug use, particularly opioids, is an ever-prevalent problem in the United States.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that the Midwest saw a 70-percent increase in opioid overdoses from July 2016 through September 2017.

According to the Ohio Department of Health, out of the 4,854 overdose deaths in 2017 (as recorded on the death certificate), 85.7 percent of those deaths were from any kind of opioid.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid epidemic as a ‘public health emergency’.

Through the Comprehensive Addition and Recovery Act (CARA), signed in 2016 by then-president Barack Obama, a comprehensive strategy to help fight the opioid epidemic with grants was established.

The Portage County MHRB received a grant of $534,750 from the state to be used over a three-year period that will focus on recovery and treatment of addiction.

“It is our job to plan, fund, and monitor the mental health and drug addiction programs and services for the residents of our county,” says Karyn Kravetz, the director of community relations for the Portage County MHRB.

There are MHRBs all over the state; some boards may encompass multiple counties while others only focus on one county, such as Portage’s MHRB.

The MHRB directed their grant at four major ideas: recovery housing, prevention programs, peer recovery supporters, and medication assisted treatment.

“[Recovery housing] is for a person who has been struggling with addiction and now is going to treatment and is no longer using,” Kravetz says. “They used to be called sober housing, but now it’s called recovery housing.”

Being in this type of housing can make a very important difference for an addict in recovery.

“A lot of times it’s hard for them to move back into their old environment,” Kravetz says. “They’re around the same old people, places and things that they were surrounded by in their active addiction…it’s better for the person to be in an environment where everyone around them is also in recovery.”

The grant money also went towards prevention programs in local schools from kindergarten through high school.

One of Portage County MHRB’s biggest wins from the grant is their peer recovery supporters.

“Those are people that are in recovery themselves,” Kravetz says. “They help people who are currently struggling…thinking to the [Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)] model, when someone has a sponsor.”

Unlike AA, there does not have to be a spiritual component to the program. 

“It can also be thought of as like a case manager,” Kravetz says. “Maybe they’ll drive a person to meetings, help connect them to resources, help them figure out counseling.”

This program was something the MHRB wanted to implement for a long time.

“We were excited to get the funding for that,” Kravetz says. “It’s something we’ve been wanting to do in our county for a long time but didn’t have the funding, but we’re really hoping it will make a difference.”

The MHRB also focuses on medication assisted treatment in regards to opioid addicts, such as the use of Suboxone. 

Suboxone, according to its website, is used to treat adults who are dependent on opioids. 

“To help with the physical tendency and cravings of the drug, they can take a medicine that will ward off the physical cravings of the opioid,” Kravetz says. “The person can focus on their recovery, but it’s still important for the person to get counseling…[the drug] only focuses on the physical cravings.”

The opioid epidemic caused people to think differently about the way they view addiction, especially because of the newsworthiness of it in Ohio.

“It really did bring our organizations together to work towards that cause of trying to do anything they can to help,” Kravetz says. “…I think it’ll be exciting to see how many people [the new programs] can help.”