Restore HOPE Early Diversion Program - Breathitt, Wolfe, Lee, Owsley, Leslie, Letcher, Knott and Perry County are remote rural counties located in the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky. The counties comprise the Kentucky River Region, 5th U.S. Congressional District. Four are designated Promise Zone and Opportunity Zone counties. Kentucky has the highest incarceration rate of adults in the country. Despite the lack of population density, the KYHealthFacts data supports that this Eastern KY Region keeps pace with the more urban parts of the State, especially with drug arrests per 100,000 (Region 2261 vs State 2301). According to Measure of America (2021), the district ranks next to last in the nation with 23.5% of youth 16-24 not in school nor employed. Breathitt County was named among the top 50 counties in the nation as priority for intervention with 31.6%. Status offense rates were equally high, 94/1000 for the state with 151/1000 for Perry County. The KY Dept of Education reports the homeless rate for students are the worst in the state, with homeless rate for students in Perry (9.2%) more than triple the State 3% average. Three of our target counties continue to have juvenile incarceration rates above State norms, and five have rates of 10/1000 or worse. These eastern Kentucky counties chosen for intervention have an estimated 2,296 court involved/re-entry population, ages 18-35. The number of Kentucky children being raised by foster/kinship is trending upward; having increased 75% between 2012- 2014 and 2016-2018. Youth aging out of care are in the extreme risk category for unemployment, addiction, suicide, school dropout, incarceration, and exploitation. Guided by a consortium of safety net providers, implementation of diversion efforts is bearing fruit. KRCC is piloting a TAY grant offering services and supports via Drop-in Centers. These Centers are beginning to be used as check in points for DJJ involved youth who are fulfilling diversion plans or post release plans. KRCC is also a treatment partner with local Drug Courts, and with KY Senate bill 90 prioritizing adult nonviolent crime offender diversion, the partners are planning how to extend this partnership with Commonwealth Attorney/Judicial and Law Enforcement to offer adult treatment diversion options to prevent arrests or incarceration. The Region’s SAMHSA Early Diversion grant application, Restore HOPE, will provide the resources to enable partner members in the KY River Region to build an outreach and assessment process whereby behavioral health, law enforcement and other safety net providers will participate earlier in the legal process, minimizing client contact with criminal justice, and offering a seamless referral link to appropriate treatment interventions and social supports in lieu of incarceration. Specifically, Restore HOPE will hire outreach coordinators to lead a team that will 1) complete mapping the DJJ/Justice system and behavioral health system to identify multiple points of intervention and establish a protocol to utilize these points to improve effectiveness and efficiency in diversions 2) establish a screening and assessment protocol to use for diversion planning with benchmarks for fidelity that includes early intervention, clinician participation in the early detention/diversion process and 3) develop additional evidence based treatment options as determined by gaps and identified need. We project serving 125 referrals in year 1.
