Two drug treatment programs in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania are planning a pilot work program to help people who are recovering from opioid use disorders find work.
Fulton Behavioral Health operates two different opioid treatment programs in McConnellsburg that use medically-assisted treatment and combine buprenorphine with individual therapy sessions to assist the patients overcome opioid use disorders as well as mental health issues.
Fulton Behavioral Health is a subsidiary of Fulton County Medical Center (FCMC) — a nonprofit organization that has been giving medical help to the residents of the county for over 60 years.
FCMC operates a hospital and a nursing facility that provides 88 beds for emergency situations. Their drug treatment programs feature outreach, rehabilitative services, community counseling as well as benefit initiatives.
Patients assisted by the Fulton Behavioral Health addiction treatment programs pay for services with cash. This enables the patient to obtain services more efficiently as well as maintain their privacy. The drug treatment programs are popular because they keep patients names off of the records kept by health insurance companies.
Fulton Behavioral Health is formulating the final designs on a work program that will be aimed at giving employment opportunities to their recovered patients. They have affiliated with a manufacturing company in the area that will give patients in their care a chance at employment upon recovery. Fulton Behavioral Health is fully supervising the program that has a goal of hiring as many recovering patients as possible.
The program, which will be called Workforce Dignity, is set to start being implemented this fall, potentially around October. This program will be aligned with Fulton County Partnership (FCP).
FCP is a program that serves the people of Fulton County attempting to develop programs for adults and children that promote drug and alcohol awareness. They also offer other child care and reduced cost dental services.
If Workforce Dignity is deemed successful, it could pave the way for similar initiatives to be deployed in the future for people recovering from the effects of substance use disorders.
In the past, FCMC had created an Implementation Strategy Action Plan to address health quality concerns in Fulton County. Their aim was to formulate a long-term strategy to care for people and look for ways to combine a physical and behavioral health formula.
In terms of focusing on drug prevention, they are looking to create a task force that examines accumulated data and determine what programs can be offered to the underserved community.
One of the hopes in this strategy action plan was that they could discover ways to increase shielding factors that decrease problematic behavior. Part of this goal also included adding access to drug and alcohol addiction treatment providers within the county. There was also an effort to bring awareness to the dangers of substance abuse.
According to the Philadelphia division of the Drug Enforcement Authority (DEA) and the University of Pittsburgh, there were 11 drug-related overdoses in the county in 2016 while in 2015 there were three — an increase of 266 percent.
The DEA also attributed oxycodone and heroin as the top drugs found in people’s systems when they died. The majority of overdose deaths occurred among people between the ages of 25 and 34.
Author: Robert B. Hayek
Robert B Hayek is a reporter for Addiction Now and covers features and local spotlight stories. He previously worked for Fox Sports as a production assistant as well as a writer and reporter for an online website called Real Talk Sports Network. He has lived in Southern California his entire life, is a lover of books and writing and also surfs. Contact Robert at roberth@addictionnow.com
