“MEDICATION ASSISTED TREATMENT HAS MANY DIFFERENT FORMS.” were using before they were sentenced often will get out and use the same amount as they were before they were incarcerated. That often leads to overdose. So we realized we need to be able to identify ways to both treat these individuals while they are serving time and make sure they have easy access to providers for continued treatment. By just letting them leave, we’re not really serving them. To address this, we at Ramsey County got in touch with My Home Inc. and identified them as a culturally competent provider who can help us better serve the African American and American Indian populations. We needed to ensure we have a provider to help them transition into their new lives in the community. I believe the cultural component to care is just as important as almost any other factor in an individual receiving treatment. Many of these minority communities are dealing with stigmas surrounding mental health care or drug treatment. So we have to be able to ensure that we are working with a provider that is taking these factors into significant consideration.”
“I started a medication-assisted therapy program at Hennepin just before starting my current position. We were finding a largely disproportionate number of people of color in correctional facilities as compared to those who were white. Over the years, we were seeing people who didn’t have access to healthcare in their communities, and that includes mental health care. So they had gone longer without care and were sicker when they came in for treatment. We began to look at how we could better serve our populations who’d often been underserved. If we could get them turned around if they did come into corrections, we thought maybe we could connect them with services and reduce the rate of recidivism. Medication-assisted treatment has many different forms. Methadone was originally developed for clients to start and then wean off. Our intention is to really treat people with Suboxone to help provide comfort in withdrawing from opiates. Treatment with methadone and Suboxone is very different. Suboxone is much friendlier. With Methadone, a client has to be dosed every day. They have to interrupt their lives every day to go to a clinic and be dosed. With Suboxone, however, there is a prescription, so a client can take their medication home and take it on their own. Looking at the numbers of people who are dying from opioid addiction, African American and American Indian populations have the highest rates. These are a lot of the same groups we see in corrections or in mental health centers. Many people who leave corrections and
“We began to look how we could better serve our populations who’d often been underserved.”
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