Comprehensive Opioid and Substance Abuse Peer Support and Community Outreach Program

The Hennepin Sheriff’s Office is applying under Category 1: Locally Driven Responses to the Opioid Epidemic and Subcategory 1a - a service area with a population over 500,000. This application supports services in Hennepin County, Minnesota’s largest and most populous county that spans across 600 square miles, with nearly 1.3 million residents.

The proposed initiative will allow the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office to expand evidence- peer recovery support services to individuals in custody. These services are essential to supporting treatment engagement. It will also expand community access to drug-take services. The proposed project addresses COSSAP’s allowable uses of implementing evidence-based recovery support services and implement accessible drug take-back programs for unused controlled substances.

Deliverables include conducting 24 outreach/community education sessions annually where 1,200 drug disposal pouches and 2,499 naloxone kits will be distributed; providing peer recovery support services to up to 435 individuals as they transition from the detention facility to the community; and conducting weekly therapeutic writing courses in-custody.

The proposed initiative addresses the priority consideration of building trust with the community.