TASC of Northwest Ohio Improving Crisis Stabilization and Community Reentry Program

Situated in an area of the country with a history of severe equity, equality, and structural problems, Treatment and Accountability for Safer Communities of Northwest Ohio (TASC) is applying for funding to support the enhancement of peer-support-based intake, case management, and crisis intervention services for clients with substance use disorders (SUDs) and/or substance use and mental health disorders (co-occurring disorders; CODs). As a reentry organization situated in Toledo, Ohio which serves the larger Lucas County region, TASC offers services to clients who have historically been severely underserved based on decades of structural degradation, endemic poverty, and embedded racism – practices that have led the region to have one of the highest rates and volumes of SUDs, overdoses, and overdose fatalities in the United States.

In an effort to help resolve this issue while helping restore equitability for our primarily disadvantaged population of racial and ethnic minorities who have SUDs and/or CODs, we propose the TASC-REI program to 1) enhance intake services for clients with SUDs and/or CODs; 2) enhance crisis intervention practices at times of day when our staff are typically not working to ensure service delivery around the clock, and; 3) embed peer-support-based services into the intake and crisis intervention services for our clients while also providing options for transitional, semi-permanent, or permanent housing. TASC proposes to use a randomized control trial (RCT) design to assess whether the treatment group clients (150 clients receiving TASC’s existing services plus enhanced, continuous 24/7 services, embedded with crisis intervention and peer support) have significantly higher amounts of program completion and lower levels or rearrest compared to those in the control group (150 clients receiving existing TASC services).

Due to the structurally depleted nature of our region, we expect that the enhanced caseload will benefit greatly from the proposed program. This project satisfies Priority Areas 1A (instilling equity into service delivery) and 2 (continuous care). We propose to partner with over a dozen agencies, including a regional jail (Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio), our local court (Toledo Municipal Court) and their Probation Division, the local Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, mental health service providers, housing authorities, and social service providers.

Partnered with a nationally- and internationally-renowned team of researchers, a full process and outcome evaluation will be performed. Findings will be disseminated to both practitioner, research, and policy-based outlets.