Post-Opioid Recovery Team for Orange County, Florida

Orange County (Florida) Government Health Services is the applicant for this Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Site-Based Program. The proposed Orange County Post-Overdose Response Team (PORT) will increase access to evidence-based treatment and recovery support for individuals living with an opioid use disorder (OUD). The service area is all of Orange County, with a particular focus on those census tracts with the highest overdose rates, and on individuals who have more than one unintentional overdose requiring emergency response.

The proposed Orange County Post-Overdose Response Team addresses the following allowable use, and 100% of program funding will be dedicated to this undertaking: Field-initiated projects that bring together justice, behavioral health, and public health practitioners to implement new or promising practices, which may not yet have a research base in addressing the impact of opioids, stimulants, and other substances on communities as a whole and individuals at risk of or with justice system involvement. This includes the application of evidence-based strategies from other fields that have not yet been fully examined in the justice context. While there is promising research on the use of a PORT model in multiple settings around the U.S., there is still a need for extensive testing and research. In addition, the focus of this proposal on improved outcomes for people with OUD, while reducing stress on the healthcare and law enforcement infrastructure is not yet a well-examined strategy.
Orange County Health Services is seeking priority consideration for part 1(A). The target communities in the service area are census tracts that see a disproportionate number of accidental overdose cases, and that also tend toward higher poverty rates and BIPOC populations.  These communities have been traditionally underserved, and have not had equitable access to awareness, prevention, intervention or treatment/recovery. These communities also have disproportionate engagement with law enforcement/criminal justice. Orange County Health Department proposes that targeting individuals with OUD in these communities with the intensive case management approach that PORT provides is a key way to remove barriers to equitable access and better outcomes for individuals and communities. This priority is described in Section b.14 on page 16, and throughout the needs section on pages 1-5.