‘Recovery to Work’ program to rehab addicts who can’t get work

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

Drug addicts who can’t get or keep a job because of their addic­tion may be eli­gi­ble to receive treat­ment through a new pro­gram called “Recov­ery to Work” funded by the Ohio Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Ser­vices Com­mis­sion and the Crawford/Marion Alco­hol, Drug Addic­tion and Men­tal Health board. Jody Demo-Hodgins, Crawford/Marion ADAMH direc­tor, announced the program’s for­ma­tion at a meet­ing with area human resources rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the Craw­ford County Cour­t­house on Thurs­day, Dec. 1.

Recov­ery to Work is designed to assist peo­ple with addic­tion or men­tal health issues that present bar­ri­ers to employ­ment, and is not open to peo­ple who are already employed. The RSC put up $253,000 for the pro­gram in Craw­ford and Mor­row coun­ties. The local ADAMH board matched with $84,800, of which $34,000 came from Crawford’s share of the board’s levy funding.

Drug addic­tion often appears in tan­dem with men­tal dis­abil­i­ties, accord­ing to Demo-Hodgins. Plus, “we know very quickly that using drugs, espe­cially opi­ates, has a strong effect on the brain,” she said, so pair­ing drug addic­tion with men­tal health for Recov­ery to Work made sense.

“It’s not just an addic­tion issue,” echoed Dave Williamson, direc­tor of the Craw­ford County Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Part­ner­ship. “It’s also a men­tal health issue.” And if drug addicts are apply­ing for jobs over and over while fail­ing drug tests, they’re prob­a­bly beyond recre­ational drug use and into the addic­tion stage, he said.

The pro­gram is open to unem­ployed Craw­ford or Mar­ion res­i­dents age 18 and up who strug­gle with men­tal and emo­tional dis­or­ders includ­ing alco­hol and drug depen­dency or ex-offender sta­tus. A dozen peo­ple are in var­i­ous stages of the pro­gram now.

Tonya Thomp­son, the Voca­tional Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Pub­lic and Pri­vate Part­ner­ships coor­di­na­tor for Craw­ford and Mar­ion coun­ties, assesses each appli­cant for eli­gi­bil­ity. Then eli­gi­ble appli­cants start in some kind of voca­tional coun­sel­ing or treat­ment, depend­ing on the kind of men­tal health or addic­tion issue involved. At the con­clu­sion of the pro­gram, recov­er­ing addicts might work for a trial period with an employer and be paid by the ADAMH board dur­ing the trial.

Thomp­son is work­ing with Com­mu­nity Coun­sel­ing Ser­vices in Bucyrus, with the Mary­haven drug treat­ment office in Delaware and with the Mar­ion Area Coun­sel­ing Center.

The suc­cess rate for addic­tion treat­ment is low, Demo-Hodgins said, remain­ing at around 10 to 12 per­cent. Opi­ates addic­tion treat­ment suc­cess rates are gen­er­ally even lower since so many addicts relapse at least tem­porar­ily. How­ever, if those relapses are con­sid­ered part of the recov­ery process, long-term recov­ery rates approach the long-term suc­cess rates of men­tal health treat­ments, she said.

Gov. John Kasich announced the for­ma­tion of Recov­ery to Work at the state level in April and the allo­ca­tion of $36 mil­lion for the pro­gram. Accord­ing to the governor’s press release, the new drug treat­ment and work readi­ness funds came from a part­ner­ship between the Ohio Depart­ment of Alco­hol and Drug Addic­tion Ser­vices, the RSC, the Ohio Depart­ment of Men­tal Health, and Ohio’s county ADAMH boards. With $9 mil­lion from the ADAMH boards statewide, RSC was able to receive $27 mil­lion in match­ing fed­eral dollars.

For more infor­ma­tion about the Crawford-Marion Recov­ery to Work pro­gram, call Tonya Thomp­son at (419) 562‑2000 or (419) 834‑3874.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Dec 2 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.