Access: The TAC Blog

Meeting the Opioid Use Disorder Needs of California’s American Indian and Alaska Native Populations

TAC recently entered into a two-year contract with the California Department of Health Care Services to provide technical assistance (TA) and facilitation for the state’s Tribal Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) Project. The Tribal MAT Project is designed to meet the specific prevention, treatment, and recovery needs of California’s American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) residents. The impact of the national opioid epidemic on this population in California is especially severe, and significant barriers hinder AI/AN access to MAT and other substance use disorder treatment services. Problems include inadequate provider networks, lack of transportation in remote regions, unawareness of available services, stigma, the need for greater cultural literacy in service provision, and distrust of services and providers outside of AI/AN communities.

Described by its lead entities as “A unified response to the opioid crisis in California Indian Country,” the Tribal MAT Project is funded through State Targeted Response (STR) and State Opioid Response (SOR) grants that California received from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and is a core component of California’s overall STR/SOR portfolio. Through the contract, TAC Senior Consultant John O’Brien and Senior Associate Tyler Sadwith will offer management support; provide facilitation and TA to Tribal MAT Project contractors; develop a communications toolkit; conduct a scan of effective state and tribal substance use disorder strategies; and deliver planning recommendations for future efforts to mitigate the opioid crisis in California’s American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

Over-Incarceration as an Obstacle to Community Integration for People with Mental Illness

In March, TAC convened leading mental health policy and civil rights advocates in Washington, D.C. to discuss the incarceration of people with mental illness, specifically in the context of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead law. The U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Olmstead v. L.C. decision, which turns 20 this year, requires public entities to ensure that people with disabilities live in the least restrictive, most integrated settings possible. Symposium participants discussed the changes needed to address system failures that currently lead to the over-incarceration of people with mental illness in correctional settings.

As TAC Executive Director Kevin Martone explained to Mental Health Weekly, “Government agencies must recognize the unnecessary incarceration of people with unmet mental health service needs as a civil rights issue, and fully incorporate initiatives to prevent and end the criminalization of people with mental illness into their Olmstead planning efforts.”

TAC will issue a brief that highlights this problem in honor of the 20th anniversary of Olmstead this summer. 

TAC Staff in Action

STAFF ACTIVITIES

TAC Associate Phil Allen and Senior Associate Douglas Tetrault helped coordinate a regional meeting of Supportive Services for Veteran Families grantees in Dallas, TX, while TAC contractor Naomi Sweitzer was on hand at the Los Angeles, CA edition of the same event; Associates Ellen Fitzpatrick and Lauren Knott joined the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness for its “road show” of Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program bidders meetings across the state; Executive Director Kevin Martone joined a panel on “New Research on Housing for Extremely Vulnerable Populations” at the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual Housing Policy Forum; In Snohomish County, WA, Senior Associate Rachel Post helped the county expand its coordinated entry system to include referrals to a statewide supported employment program funded by an 1115 Demonstration waiver; Rachel was also recently invited to speak to the California Department of Social Services and its contracted counties about the value of incorporating performance measures into their rapid re-housing contracts.