Cook County Community Recovery Collaborative

Cook County Health (CCH) is applying for $1.6 million for the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Site-based Program (COSSAP), Category 1: Units of local government, Subcategory 1a. CCH is one of the largest public health systems in the U.S., providing a range of health services regardless of a patient’s ability to pay.

This project serves Cook County, Illinois’ 5.2 million residents. The purpose of the project is to further develop a regional learning health system approach to substance use disorder (SUD) care for justice-involved individuals. The proposed project builds upon and enhances the work underway through the CCH FY2020 COSSAP Site-based program to: 1) 1) expand the partnerships of the Cook County Community Recovery Learning and Action Network (CCCR-LAN), a regional multisectoral collaborative that guides the COSSAP-funded efforts; 2) expand and optimize the Cook County Recovery Home Coordinated Capacity Project, a recovery home navigation program successfully piloted in February 2022 that has received 36 referrals with 22% successful placement rate; 3) expand the scope of the CCCR-LAN to include improved access to SUD care for individuals on electronic monitoring; and 4) implement a data-sharing linkage between County Care and Cook County Adult Probation to improve enrollment in the Medicaid health plan and engagement in care coordination services. These project aims address three allowable uses of funds: 

Evidence-based SUD treatment related to opioids, stimulants, and other illicit drugs, such as MAT, as well as harm reduction activities and recovery support services (30%)
Recovery housing and peer recovery support services. (40%) 
Embedding social workers, peers, and/or persons with lives experience within the Sequential Intercept Model. (30%)

The project will work with partners from criminal justice, recovery housing, SUD treatment, harm reduction, state agencies, social service, healthcare, and public health organizations who have demonstrated their commitment to the goals of this initiative and to active participation in the CCCR-LAN. CCH anticipates this project will result in improved access to and coordination of SUD care and recovery support services for justice-involved individuals in Cook County, which they hope will lead to improved health outcomes, including reduced risk of drug overdose, for this population.

CCH is seeking priority consideration 1(A) as a project that will promote racial equity and the removal of barriers to access and opportunity for historically marginalized communities (pages 12 -13 of the narrative). This application also proposes technological enhancements with a digital trust description on pages 19-20.