Colorado Region 4 Opioid Abatement Council Assessment, Planning, and Implementation Support

Project Description

Starting in 2022, Colorado’s Region 4 Opioid Council contracted with Omni to assist them in receiving, managing, and reporting on the use of opioid funds from the State of Colorado pursuant to the Colorado Opioids Settlement Memorandum of Understanding.

Region 4 is comprised of ten rural counties in central and northeast Colorado. Behavioral health-related challenges facing the region include:

• Reported increases in drug overdoses across the region
• Shortage of opioid-focused resources and providers
• Limited access to the internet and transportation to services

Setting the Stage

Before starting opioid abatement planning, Omni brought the Region 4 Opioid Council and partners together to build processes that would facilitate collaboration and information sharing. Key strategies included determining:

• Goals & Objectives: Omni guided the Council to align expectations and objectives for the project.
• Communictaions Practices: Omni established communication processes that would foster success.
• Engagement & Buy-in: Omni designed a process to promote engagement and buy-in that laid a solid foundation to support the Council and partners in making data-driven decisions.

Initial Opioid Abatement Planning

Omni facilitated the Council’s initial planning process to complete the Opioid Abatement 2-Year Plan required by the state of Colorado. Steps to the planning process included:

• Needs Assessment
  Omni gathered existing relevant needs assessment reports, related data, first-hand knowledge and experiences from local providers and community members, and information on existing prevention, harm reduction, treatment, recovery, and criminal justice resources to help identify gaps and the priority needs of the region.
• Training
  Omni developed and provided training to increase the Council members’ knowledge of the continuum of behavioral health-related services and outcomes.
• Prioritization and Facilitation
  Omni engaged the Council with interactive methods to support consensus on the priorities for the two-year plan mapped to follow the Colorado MOU Approved Purposes.

Taking Action: Implementation, Demonstrating Impact, and Sustainability

Omni supported Region 4 as it moved from the planning stages to the implementation of the two-year abatement plan including evaluation reporting to demonstrate impact and sustainability planning to ensure future success.

• Implementation
  Using the plan as the guide, Omni and the Council began implementation activities, including a Request for Proposal process to identify and fund providers who can best achieve the Region 4 priorities. For example, the first RFP focused on improving transportation access to community members in need of treatment, recovery, and prevention services. This set the stage for ongoing RFP development and funding distribution that
  will support additional funding priorities.
• Evaluation
  To capture the impact of the funding distributed via the RFP process, Omni worked with awardees to establish ongoing evaluation activities. Evaluation activities include:
  
  • Identifying opioid-abatement-focused outcomes and measurements
  • Mapping out data collection protocols
  • Collecting baseline information prior to funding
  • Ongoing data collection to track trends over time
  • Generating engaging and accessible quarterly and annual reports
• Sustainability Planning
  Colorado’s Opioid Abatement Council provides funding to regions over a 16-year timeframe. Omni is working with Region 4 to build a sustainability plan that will ensure continued impact. Planning includes an annual assessment of:
  
  • Current behavioral health data trends
  • Community needs
  • Available resources
  • Gaps in services
  • OpportunitiesProject Description