STAR Expansion - MAT & Recovery House

The Washoe County Department of Alternative Sentencing (DAS) proposes to implement the Support in Treatment, Accountability, and Recovery (STAR) Expansion Project, expanding the services provided through STAR for justice-involved persons released from Washoe County Jail on probation or pre-trial supervision with DAS, who also suffer from opioid use disorder. This project will address barriers to recovery surrounding Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) and recovery housing for STAR program participants. Project activities include identifying program participants whose recovery success may be compromised due to socioeconomic barriers, such as ability to pay for MAT services and secure, safe housing. Through partnership with local service providers, DAS will provide continued access to MAT for up to twelve participants yearly who lose Medicaid eligibility, provide access to recovery housing for at least ten participants yearly in-between completion of structured, residential programming and finding permanent housing, and provide additional priority beds for up to five female participants yearly in structured residential recovery programming. Treatment partners include Groups Recover Together, The Life Change Center, and CrossRoads. Evidence-based SUD services to be provided post-release include the Courage to Change interactive journaling series, MAT as indicated, and peer recovery support. DAS will partner with University of Nevada, Reno Center for the Application of Substance Abuse Technologies (CASAT) to conduct an evaluation for the program that includes both process and outcome evaluations. The process evaluation will monitor services received by individual STAR participants; the outcome evaluation will include follow-up of participants over a 12-month period following discharge from the program. DAS will use evaluation data to guide the program’s overall trajectory to help ensure recovery success for its participants reentering society. All participants are assessed using ASAM, proctored by our on-staff licensed clinician. DAS will use the baseline recidivism rate of 26.46%, calculated by analysis of prison admission records for releasees following 36 months of discharge, as reported by the Nevada Department of Corrections July 2022 report, to inform programmatic data collection trajectory. Expected outcomes include strengthening relationships with local substance use prevention partners, and increased recovery success for STAR program participants which benefits all of Washoe County by way of addressing the revolving door that often accompanies justice-involved individuals suffering from an SUD, reducing the economic burden placed on Washoe County as a result of repeated incarceration, justice processes, and social services allocations, and not least of which, contribute to an increased number of healthy, contributing members of society.