The Fletcher Group, a nonprofit that helps people recover from substance use disorder, is getting $3.3 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to combat the opioid epidemic in Kentucky.
The funding comes from the Department of Health’s Rural Communities Opioid Response Program. It will support programs out of the group’s Rural Center of Excellence based in London, focusing on giving recovery resources to those in rural areas.
“The work we do is to really come in and support those communities who may have one individual wearing five different hats within the community, trying to balance everything and trying to help out,” Fletcher Group’s Director of Policy Andrew Howard said.
Some of the programs that will be bolstered by this cycle of funding include the building of a recovery home for pregnant and parenting women in Middlesboro in Bell County, a peer support specialist training program at Southeast Community College in Harlan County and a recovery to work program based out of the University of Kentucky.
Howard said these programs are meant to help those in recovery in the long-term.
“A big part of that is, okay, you're in recovery, then what about all the social capital that you need to address?” Howard said. “So social drivers of health, like employment and housing, it’s helping those individuals get access to that as well.”
The Fletcher Group runs one of three Rural Centers of Excellence focusing on substance use recovery in the nation. The other two centers are run by the University of Rochester and the University of Vermont.