Representatives from the State of Wisconsin Department of Health Service including Secretary Seemeyer joined the HOPE Consortium Steering Committee for discussion.

Ronda Kopelke and Dottie Moffat converse with the HOPE Consortium Care Coordinators during the meet and greet before the Steering Committee Meeting.

State representatives were presented with brief overviews from each partner organization followed by a summary of HOPE Consortium efforts conducted with support of all partners. It was also an honor to spend the first 30 minutes of the meeting networking with our five HOPE Consortium Care Coordinators, Deanna Daniels, Jordan Schellin, Karlie Trapp, Peter Walker,and Andrea Yates, who were thanked for the phenomenal services they are providing to our HOPE Consortium clients.

An application was recently submitted for AmeriCorps funding to recruit members from the HOPE Consortium region who have been affected, directly or indirectly, by a substance use disorder to serve as Recovery Coaches throughout the region. Recognizing that treatment accounts for only a portion of sustained recovery, Recovery Coaches can begin to engage clients seeking recovery during the waiting period before treatment services begin and long after treatment ends to help the individuals maintain long-term recovery. HOPE Consortium partner sites will serve as host sites for members with support from a centralized Program Manager. Program benefits are anticipated for both the member serving as a Recovery Coach as well as the communities in which they serve. Member training will prepare individuals for future employment in a related field while continuing to focus on personal recovery wellness. Community benefits include ongoing client engagement before and after treatment, opportunities for community education about substance use disorders, and promotion of regional workforce development. The application was submitted November 2nd and if funding is awarded, the program is slated to begin in the fall of 2017. More information about what it means to serve as a host site will be forthcoming.          

During our discussion of training and educational opportunities at the recent HOPE Consortium Steering Committee Meeting, Greg Nycz mentioned the value of staying up-to-date with the scientific literature related to substance use disorders and has agreed to share relevant articles for summary in this newsletter. The article Greg provided this month, entitled "Long-Term Course of Opioid Addiction," was published in 2015 by Yih-Hing Hser and colleagues from the University of California Los Angeles in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The authors conducted a comprehensive review of nearly 30 long-term cohort studies in order to assess patterns in the course of opioid use disorders and associated factors. The authors' attention to the impact of external factors, such as time frame, geography, environmental and geopolitical considerations, the presence of co-occurring disease, and treatment availability, made this a particularly well-done and nuanced review of the literature. Specific events of note included the availability of methadone maintenance therapy in 1965, emergence of HIV/AIDS in 1980 and subsequent treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy in 1990, and buprenorphine treatment in 2000. Generalizations across the studies examined were difficult given the wide variation in geographic, temporal, and population characteristics, however, broad patterns did emerge, as follows:

While these findings are of great interest to our Consortium, particularly as we expand the availability of wraparound services and recovery support in our service area, it is of particular note that the impact of more recent advances in medication assisted treatment (e.g., buprenorphine, naltrexone) has not been well-studied with respect to the long-term course of opioid use disorders. Perhaps this is a question the HOPE Consortium can help to address. To learn more, you can find a link to the article on PubMed here . Please contact Rachel Stankowski if you are unable to access the article and would like to read it in its entirety.