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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 2022)
THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2022 A7 OUTREACH EFFORTS WILL PLAY A CENTRAL ROLE IN ADDICTION TREATMENT PROGRAMS BY ZACK DEMARS The Bulletin BestCare, which has pro- vided drug addiction treat- ment in the region since 1997, is set to receive the largest share of the more than $15 million distributed to Central Oregon under Measure 110 for addiction services. That’s about $5.5 million for De- schutes County, plus another $2 million for services in Jef- ferson County and $1.5 mil- lion for Crook County. Barrett Hamilton is lead- ing one of BestCare’s biggest Measure 110 endeavors: A new Bend “engagement cen- ter,” where people with addic- tion can get assistance with whatever they need to stay safe, from basic needs to em- ployment assistance, to rapid access to BestCare’s outpatient addiction treatment services right across the hall. Prior to the Measure 110 expansion, Hamilton offered similar services out of a van in Redmond. “This will be a bigger ver- sion of that,” Hamilton said. “This will be a place they can come, and we’ll just try to re- move the barriers that are keeping them stuck in their addiction and when they realize ‘OK, I need detox or I need treatment or I need men- tal health,’ we can act right then.” The idea of relying on out- reach and engagement to get people into treatment rather than law enforcement or pun- ishment appeals to Hamilton’s own path to addiction recov- ery. “I was in active addiction for 27 years. I’ve been in jail, in prison, and it never stopped me,” Hamilton said. “But what has worked in those 27 years: I was sober two different times. ... both times I went to treat- ment and figured it out. This time I didn’t make the same mistakes I made last time.” BestCare has some experi- ence offering people with ad- diction a range of services in hopes of helping them on the path to recovery. The orga- Continued from previous page About 70% of new Oregon pa- tients in October were able to be seen within two days of their ini- tial call (though the company says it wants that figure to be 100% for services funded by Measure 110). About 60% of the company’s Or- egon patients remain in its care six months later — double the na- tional average, the company said. Another treatment provider will be using Measure 110 funds to expand into the Deschutes County Jail. Ideal Option is receiving about $1.2 million of the Deschutes County allocation to expand its community outreach program, offer a clinic for accessing addic- tion treatment medication at a Safeway in Bend and, if they can find a location to rent, open a Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin BestCare Community Engagement Team Care Manager Barrett Ham- ilton, right, works with Wiley Dave during outreach on Hunnell Road in Bend in early November. nization has operated an en- gagement team in St. Charles hospitals’ emergency floors for a little over two years. The premise of that work is fairly simple: Hospital so- cial workers call the BestCare team whenever someone comes into the emergency room with a drug- or alco- hol-related issue. An en- gagement team staff member meets the individual at their bedside and walks through new clinic in Redmond. The organization also plans to begin offering its services in part- nership with the medical staff at the Deschutes County jail. The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Of- fice doesn’t have a precise esti- mate but, even with the decrim- inalization of drug possession, many people in the jail do have some kind of substance use issue. (Statewide estimates offer some idea of what that population might be: About half of the state’s prison population has an addic- tion of some kind.) Ideal Option has tried the in- jail treatment program before. In Benton County, in Eastern Wash- ington, 68% of inmates who were referred to Ideal Option over the course of a year went to their ap- pointment after being released. what the person might need. One learning curve of oper- ating that program is defining what “success” looks like for an individual client, accord- ing to Kristina Van Alstine, the program’s case manager. While people might not ini- tially want to get into addic- tion treatment, the outreach efforts build connections so those people have resources to do so if they wish, she said. “I think, if people can get Half of those people were re- tained in treatment for a month or more and, for the 1,389 indi- viduals served by the program and released from jail, there had only been 121 new charges filed. “If we can use the medica- tion assisted treatment to take away the cravings for whatever substance they’re using, it easier for them to not go out seeking the drugs, or whatever they’re addicted to, and they can start hopefully having more of a nor- mal life,” said Sgt. Jayson Janes, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office. “In the long run, that’s what we want, is people to kick their ad- diction and be able to live a good life.” █ Reporter: 541-617-7814, zdemars@bendbulletin.com away from the black and white thinking of what behavioral health is and look at the gray and see that it’s not the same for everybody, I think that maybe we will have success in taking care of the substance use epidemic,” a Alstine said. Since it started, the engage- ment team has seen about 600 people in the emergency room, Van Alstine said. A lit- tle over half of those had some kind of further relationship with the BestCare team. For some, that was as simple as follow-up phone calls or peer support meetings. For about 9% of those who engaged, that was a connection to medica- tion supported recovery ser- vices, 16% received access to detox services, and about 37% received some kind of sub- stance use treatment. For BestCare Executive Director Rick Treleaven, the project of Measure 110 is a statewide “social experiment” in pivoting from a historically criminal-justice-oriented re- sponse to addiction. “This will be a place they can come, and we’ll just try to remove the barriers that are keeping them stuck in their addiction and when they realize ‘OK, I need detox or I need treatment or I need mental health,’ we can act right then.” — Barrett Hamilton, leading one of BestCare’s biggest Measure 110 endeavors “And so we’re going to stop that, and we’re going to set up a system of engagement and outreach and harm reduction to that population with the hopes of decreasing the dam- age of drugs and alcohol and hopefully engaging a certain percentage of those people into recovery-based services,” Treleaven said. █ Reporter: 541-617-7814, zdemars@bendbulletin.com Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin Lisa Bradley, clinical manager of Healing Reins, with therapy horse Yukon on their ranch near Tumalo last month. “He has a pretty different personality, he has many different shades,” Brad- ley said of Yukon, who will be a part of the nonprofit’s new substance use disorder program. 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