Care Plus NJ's Northeastern NJ Recovery and Individualized Support Expansion (RISE) - Care Plus NJ's Northeastern NJ Recovery and Individualized Support Expansion (RISE) will enhance and expand comprehensive treatment, care coordination, community outreach, and recovery support services for high school adolescents and young adults (ages 14-30) who are struggling with substance use disorders (SUD's) and/or co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders in Bergen County, NJ.
The target population includes adolescents and young adults who have the highest prevalence and fastest growing rates of substance use, major depression, serious mental illness, and suicidality. Rising overdose rates related to the burgeoning opioid crisis have given a specific urgency to addressing these needs, particularly in NJ where the drug overdose rate increased 29.3% from 2016 to 2017, higher than the national average. Bergen County's overdose rate has nearly doubled from 2016-2018, and 52% of opioid overdoses were for individuals ages 18-31. Bergen County is assessed to have the highest percentage of unmet demand for substance use treatment in the state at 58.4%. Access to services and retention in treatment is often poor due to cost, inadequate insurance, lack of transportation, fractured continuity of care for adolescents graduating into the adult system of care, and a dearth of developmentally appropriate treatment options. there are currently not enough specialized services in Bergen County for the population of focus that support their recovery based on age, drug of choice, and level of support needed to complement clinical interventions.
The RISE program will provide evidence-based screening, assessment, treatment, and recovery support to 700 unduplicated adolescents and young adults throughout the grant lifecycle. Medication Assisted Treatment, ambulatory withdrawal management, outpatient and intensive outpatient individual, group, and family therapy, transportation assistance, and wraparound case management services will be offered to engage this population with the highest need but the least engagement. The goals are to provide care coordination and linkage to services to high risk high school youth to prevent or reduce the progression of a SUD, and to provide evidence-based, developmentally appropriate treatment services to young adults to increase retention in treatment and improve recovery outcomes.
Care Plus NJ's extensive network of intersystem relationships and acute insight into the population of focus will ensure that services are fully integrated, developmentally appropriate, and seamlessly coordinated between the children's and adult's systems of care. The RISE program will increase access to lifesaving services for the adolescents and young adults at highest risk of overdose, first episodes of psychosis, and escalating rates of substance use establish meaningful recovery.
