Rural Health Care Services Outreach Grant Program - We are applying for the Special Track to reduce unintentional injury due to substance use. We are requesting a Funding Preference based on Qualification 1 (HPSA). Our target population is adults (18-65 years) experiencing poverty. Special focus is given to Hispanic/Latinx ethnic minorities and homeless populations, both of whom have historically suffered from poor health outcomes, health disparities, and other inequities. The Overarching Goal of our project is to reduce incidence of unintentional injury due to substance use across rural America through deployment of rural- and SUD-attuned low-barrier Living Rooms. • Goal 1: Improve Measurement and Validation of Recovery Progress via Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP). Utilize WRAP planning as a standardized framework for monitoring Living Room guest progress and empowerment of person-centered recovery to protect against SUD-related injury. • Goal 2: Develop Warming and Cooling Center Adjunctive to Living Room to Fill Urgent Gap for Unhoused. Provide key harm reduction for unhoused population using the Living Room as an additional protection against SUD-related unintentional injury • Goal 3: Develop and Bolster Sustainability of SUD-attuned Living Room to Deploy as a Rural Model. Pursue key policy change and layer resources to ensure long-term success of the Living Room in rural America. To accomplish this, we will implement an evidence-based recovery-oriented model of care for Living Room guests (Goal 1), with 5 SMART, key objectives for training, implementation and measurement. Goal 2 develops a necessary harm reduction gap for homeless populations, with 5 key objectives to guide this critical addition to the Living Room for combatting rural homelessness. Goal 3 includes 6 key objectives for developing key sustainability features of the Living Room, preparing for deployment of the model across the rural U.S. Key to the project’s success for reducing SUD injury is the collaboration with 6 consortium members, including local government, law enforcement, health department transitioning to Rural Health Clinic status, a local hospital with emergency services, faith-based community, and Arukah as behavioral health provider. To track the same set of individuals and outcomes over the 4-year program, we designed an evaluation plan that incorporates PIMS as well as project-specific indicators for clinical improvements, social determinants of health, and financial/sustainability. Anticipated outcomes for our project include increasing access for persons with SUD, including homeless and Hispanic/Latinx, to compassionate, appropriate services; enhancement in wellness and recovery outcomes of Living Room guests; improvement in social determinants of health outcomes, i.e., stable housing, employment and health insurance; achievement of sustainable business model for Living Room through policy change; and readiness of SUD-attuned Living Room model for deployment across rural U.S. Long-term outcomes include reduction in morbidity and mortality, systemic reductions in SUD prevalence in rural, and cost savings for local rural communities and federal/state Medicaid.
