Hancock County in Ohio has built a comprehensive system focused on both treatment and recovery.
Jesse Johnson of the Family Resource Center, right, walks with client Tyler Baker to the Hancock County Adult Probation office for a random drug test in Findlay, Ohio, Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. Earlier this year, Johnson started a job with the Family Resource Center, the same organization that employed the peer support worker who was so instrumental in her own early recovery. Most of that money comes with a requirement that it be used to address the overdose crisis and prevent more deaths.
“We were grossly underprepared, like I think many places across the country were, for the opioid epidemic,” Stuby said. Some advocates urge communities not to spend settlement funds on drug courts, saying there’s limited evidence they work and that participants who return to drugs can end up with harsh jail sentences.“It was just an endless, ridiculous, awful cycle,” said Kostic, now a peer support worker in a neighboring county. “Thank God I went to drug court here in Hancock County.”
The idea, which echoes experts’ recommendations for use of the settlement money, is that people with the right support can recover from addiction. Every person who stays in recovery is a person who will not die of an overdose. The county launched a needle exchange, providing supplies to reduce needle sharing and the risk of HIV and hepatitis C. These are policy staples in larger cities, but less common in smaller ones, in part because critics worry they enable illegal and unsafe behavior.
One afternoon, Misty Weaver, the team coordinator, went out to check on two recent overdose survivors. One who overdosed in a Walmart parking lot gave a home address that didn’t exist. The person who answered the door for the other said the man had gone to a rehab facility. Weaver left a bag full of materials, including socks, naloxone, test strips, condoms and information about other services.
After eight months living there, McCarver became the on-staff coordinator for the house. After three years with that job, she recently moved to a similar position at the home for mothers.
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