Several months ago, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners agreed to move forward on a recommendation from the county’s Women and Children’s Residential Recovery Committee to use a building at Gibson Park to develop a substance abuse treatment center meant to help pregnant women and women with children.
After that decision, the county put out a request for proposals from service providers to create a plan for the recovery center and operate the program.
Guilford County received three proposals, two of which were deemed responsive by the Purchasing Department. After studying and discussing the proposals, county staff determined that Volunteers of America of the Carolinas, a faith-based nonprofit, would be the best organization to run the program – and, when the Board of Commissioners meets next on Thursday, Aug. 1, the commissioners are expected to approve the proposed contract and move forward to establish the new program.
Volunteers of America submitted a cost proposal for Phase One of the project with a price tag of $377,045.
Funding is expected to come from money provided to the county by the settlement of a national high-profile lawsuit brought by a collective of state and local governments against opioid makers and distributors as well as with federal funds from the America Rescue Plan Act. The board voted in October of 2022 to allocate $3 million in ARPA money for recovery housing and residential programs for pregnant and parenting women.
This program will be housed in the same building that houses Daymark’s existing recovery services program – so the construction work won’t be able to start until Daymark moves to the Lees Chapel facility, which is currently under renovation.
County staff will continue to work with Volunteers of America during program planning to, “as much as feasible” increase non-county revenues for the program – primarily through Medicaid.
The need for a locally-sited recovery program for pregnant and parenting women was stressed by advocates of the effort in the Opioid Settlement strategic planning process that the county conducted last year. Funding the operational costs of this type of program was one of the high-priority recommendations for the Opioid Settlement funds that the board approved in March 2024.
Potential uses for these funds include capital construction costs that are the result of acquiring and preparing a facility to provide these types of services.
Guilford County Commissioner Kay Cashion and other county commissioners have pointed out that, while there are a number of programs in the area that help people battle drug addiction and alcohol abuse, there are special challenges for women with children.
This facility is meant to fill that hole in services.
The proposals were reviewed by the committee – made up of county staff and others in the fields of behavioral health, public health, and the county manager’s office – in May of this year.
Earlier this month, both of the competing organizations were invited in for in-person interviews and a site visit was held with each potential provider.
The decision was based on criteria such as cost, experience with residential treatment for pregnant and parenting women, alignment with NC Medicaid policies, and the proven ability to follow state guidelines that pertain to a service such as this.
The committee found that Volunteers of America of the Carolina has a solid track record of providing “trauma-informed, evidence-based residential substance use treatment for pregnant women” as well as experience in service delivery with Managed Care Organizations.
Guilford County staff is working with the Volunteers of America of the Carolinas to develop a two-phased approach to the project.
Phase One includes designing the program and the facility as well as getting community organizations involved. Phase Two, the “service delivery phase,” includes “licensing the service, opening the facility, and provision of residential treatment services in the facility.”
As part of Phase One, Guilford County will “establish local partnerships to support a full system of care, identify and develop solutions to potential service delivery barriers in the community, and provide community education and awareness around the services to be provided.”
Guilford County is in the process of receiving funds from the national Opioid Settlement lawsuit and related agreements. So far, the county has received just under $9 million. Another $2.8 million is scheduled to come in to the county in the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30, 2025.
A good move, but how will it be funded next year and beyond?
This another plan to help the faithful. Charity begins at home, not by extortion. Reduce that tax rate, then anyone can voluntarily help. Now, people are being taxed, feed, inflated, rented, out of their future; and the present.
Our socialist government is responsible for all these hardships, including the drug problems flooding our borders.
Whether you are the left or the right, you know this to be true. Only the voters, with a common will, can stop this.
BiNGO!
It concerns me that the same folks who can’t tell us what a woman is although they all exist because of one have the nerve to use women as a means to get a grant. These folks never cease to amaze us all. The same health officials that pushed opiates are now using money derived from opiate producers to “help” opioid addicts by paying the “non-profit” of the day who will in turn use opiods such a methadone as treatment. Can we say $cam$ galore?!!! What a joke our society has become. The world is watching.
There are people in every profession, in every neighborhood, of every race, of every religion in Greensboro hooked on drugs.
Everywhere!!
There are people in every profession, in every neighborhood, of every race, of every religion in Greensboro hooked on drugs.
Everywhere!! It’s the master plan of the democrats.