U.S. Department of Labor | September 19, 2023 US Department of Labor awards $1M grant to Massachusetts to provide jobs, workforce training in Berkshire County communities affected by opioid crisis State cites opioid epidemic as Massachusetts’ greatest public health threat WASHINGTON – With opioid abuse responsible for about four deaths each day in Massachusetts, the commonwealth cites the epidemic as its greatest public health threat. To help address the crisis, the U.S. Department of Labor today announced the award of more than $1 million in funding for the Massachusetts Executive Office of ..read more

U.S. Department of Labor | September 18, 2023 US Department of Labor awards $992K to Washington state to support employment, training services to respond to opioid crisis WASHINGTON – Amid a sharp national increase in opioid overdoses, Washington state has also experienced significant increases in opioid-related drug overdose deaths, as deaths nearly doubled from 827 in 2019 to 1,619 in 2021. To help address the crisis, the U.S. Department of Labor today announced the award of $992,363 in grant funding to the state’s Department of Employment Security to assist those affected by the health and ..read more

Privacy Notice and Terms of Service Effective Date: January 1, 2023 This privacy notice discloses the privacy practices for all Counselor’s Magazine website domains. This privacy notice applies solely to information collected by this website, except where stated otherwise. It will notify you of the following: What information we collect; With whom it is shared; How it can be corrected; How it is secured; How policy changes will be communicated; and How to address concerns over misuse of personal data. Information Collection, Use, and Sharing We are the sole owners of the information collecte ..read more

After losing our son to an accidental overdose on his fourth day of college, my wife and I founded a national nonprofit focused on helping reverse the addiction fatality epidemic. We, along with other organizations, are tackling this national emergency with urgency. However, we have discovered a worrisome tendency along the way: despite the enormous potential leverage of connecting prevention efforts with the knowledge and experience of those in recovery, these two communities rarely work together. We have seen the effectiveness when law enforcement, prevention efforts, and links to treatment ..read more

When Demand Overruns Supply in Addiction Treatment Prior to January 1, 2020, the nation faced a growing opioid epidemic, rising addiction rates, and an exponential growth in deaths caused by alcohol abuse, drug overdose, and suicide, In 2017 life expectancy decreased in the United States for the third year in a row, in part, due to increases in death rates for alcohol, drugs, and suicide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of June 2020, 13% of Americans reported starting or increasing substance use as a way of coping with stress or emotions related to COVID-19 ..read more

In every industry there are those who play dirty- those who overprice, undersell, undercut, and diminish the value of the work in general.  The grifters, the shysters and the ones who take advantage And in Behavioral Health – the helping profession – we experience the same challenges with bad actors and unscrupulous operators.  Dramatic footage of offices raided by government officials for Medicaid fraud, operators who take advantage of patients’ vulnerability and those who are simply greedy have given our industry a black eye in the mind of the public.  And let’s be clear, the ..read more

Tough-on-crime attitudes towards drug use have exacerbated our society’s problems with substance use disorders (SUDs), leading to mass incarceration and overdose deaths (DPA, n.d.-a). It has also filtered into real systemic problems with drug education for minors (DPA, n.d.-c), adding to the crumbling of effective communication between generations. While experts talk about the importance of prevention and early intervention when it comes to teen substance use, too often that prevention is coopted by criminal justice tactics (Medina-Mora, 2005). We need to be very careful and clear about how ef ..read more

Thursday, March 24, 2022 Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics are a Proven Model for Improving Care Systems Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is announcing two Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) funding opportunities to expand and increase access to evidence-based mental health and substance use services for all Americans. This includes providing essential mental health services—such as 24-hour mobile crisis teams, screening, and case management—to vulnerable commu ..read more

Grants to Focus on Increasing Access to Medication-Assisted Treatment for People Battling Opioid Use Disorder FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, March 15, 2022 Today, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), is announcing two grant programs totaling $25.6 million that will expand access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder and prevent the misuse of prescription drugs. By reducing barriers to accessing the most effective, evidenced-based treatments, this funding reflects the priorities of H ..read more

For Immediate Release: March 10, 2022, PHILADELPHIA — Newly released data synthesizes trends in state laws to increase access to naloxone and sterile syringes. The data, published to the Prescription Drug Abuse Policy System by the Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research, supports the need to accelerate states’ adoption of harm reduction strategies, including providing access to sterile syringes, support services, and the overdose reversal drug naloxone, to prevent opioid overdose death and the transmission of blood-borne diseases in the United States.    Amidst ..read more