Louisiana Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Program (LaCOAP)

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) Program is the first major federal substance use disorder treatment and recovery legislation in 40 years and the most comprehensive effort to address the opioid epidemic. CARA establishes a comprehensive, coordinated, and balanced strategy through enhanced grant programs that expand prevention and education efforts while also promoting treatment and recovery. The Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-based program was developed as part of the CARA legislation signed into law on July 22, 2016. In FY 2017, the Statewide Planning, Coordination, and Implementation Projects will provide funding and technical assistance to State Administering Agency (SAA) responsible for directing criminal justice planning or the State Alcohol and Substance Abuse Agency. Funds will be used to establish statewide planning, coordination, and implementation projects designed to support initiatives jointly planned and implemented by the State Administrative Agency (SAA) responsible for directing criminal justice planning and the Single State Agency (SSA) for Substance Abuse Services. Category 4 contains two subcategories of funding. Category 4a awards of up to $100,000 per applicant is designed to support the development of a coordinated plan between the SAA and the SSA to assist localities in engaging and retaining offenders with opioid use disorders in treatment and recovery services; increase the use of diversion and/or alternatives to incarceration; and/or reduce the incidence of overdose death. In addition to supporting the development of a coordinated plan, which is a mandatory project deliverable of Category 4a, applicants may propose: training and/or technical assistance programs for localities geared toward improving treatment engagement and client outcomes; tracking, compiling, coordinating, and disseminating statewide and local data; or increasing communication, coordination, and information sharing among state and local programs.

Category 4b awards of up to $750,000 per applicant allows the applicant to provide financial support to localities or a region to implement the strategies contained in the plan developed as part of Category 4a. These strategies may focus on supporting treatment and recovery service engagement; increasing the use of diversion and/or alternatives to incarceration; and/or supporting initiatives that reduce the incidence of overdose death.

All federal funds under Category 4b must be passed through to localities within the state; no funds under 4b may be retained by the state for administrative purposes, except to the extent those funds are included in a current federally approved indirect cost rate and amount to no more than 10 percent of the grant amount.

The Louisiana Department of Health’s Office of Behavioral Health plans to implement the Louisiana Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Program (LaCOAP), a program that aims to reduce the number of opioid-related overdoses and overdose deaths for offenders. The program will develop a multi-agency planning team to develop a plan to address opioid use disorder in offenders. This multi-disciplinary approach includes a large number of community partners, including the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice, LDH’s Office of Public Health/Bureau of Health Informatics, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, and the New Orleans Division of the U.S. DEA. CA/NCF