Two organizations that serve Washington County residents -- Healthy Acadia and Day One --- have been awarded funds as part of the Maine Recovery Council's recent efforts to distribute $13.9 million to organizations involved in opioid recovery across the state. Healthy Acadia will receive $403,498, while Day One will receive $293,425.
      The funds come from an overall $230 million awarded to the state as part of opioid settlements with multiple distributors and businesses, including Purdue Pharma, Walmart and Johnson & Johnson. In accordance with the state's proposed plan, half of the funds are to be distributed around the state by the 15 member Maine Recovery Council over an 18 year period for the purpose of abating the opioid epidemic. Of the remaining portion of the funds, 30% will be distributed to municipalities and counties directly, and 20% will go to the attorney general's office.
      Only two applications were received from Washington County, according to Mary Coyne of the Maine Recovery Council, with organizations self selecting what counties their projects will serve. Both projects scored highly on the committee's rubric, based in part on their target population -- women and children for Healthy Acadia and adolescents for Day One.
      In the case of Healthy Acadia, the funds will help support Safe Harbor, which is the only certified recovery residence in the county as well as one of the few in the state for women only and one of the few that allows women and children to stay together. Tracey Carlson, communications director for Healthy Acadia, says, "We are grateful for and humbled by the grant of our full funding request from the Maine Recovery Council. We know they received many, many applications in support of important, worthy programs across the state. Our thanks go out to them: they worked hard to turn their decisions around quickly, and it was not easy work."
      Opening in 2020 in a joint effort by Healthy Acadia, Aroostook Mental Health Centers, the Community Caring Collaborative and Downeast Community Partners, Safe Harbor has since served 46 women and 43 children in need of a place to stay while also providing access to healthy meals, transportation and recovery resources.
      Penny Guisinger, recovery programs director at Healthy Acadia, says, "It's very difficult, if not impossible, for someone to manage all that recovery entails unless their basic needs are being met, and housing is one of those needs. Recovery residences can make all the difference for individuals seeking success in recovery."
      The new funds will provide two years of support for Safe Harbor and allow it to continue operating while its partners develop a long-term plan to sustain it indefinitely.
      At Day One, the funds will go toward a new program called Treat Me Now. Day One operates some of the state's only residential adolescent treatment facilities in Portland and Lewiston and aims to expand its outreach to adolescents who are in need of recovery, including in Washington County.
      Jeff Aalberg, medical director at Day One, says Day One's new program will see the development of "rapid evaluation teams" placed at local primary care offices and emergency rooms with a goal of making a connection with adolescents struggling with substance use within 24 hours in person or by phone and have a treatment plan started within 72 hours.
      According to Aalberg, Day One is seeing an abundance of children who are coming into their care "in worse shape than they used to be," with "more serious mental health conditions and greater exposure to dangerous substances and lethal drugs like fentanyl." On top of that, the number of adolescent deaths due to drugs has doubled between 2018 and 2022.
      Aalberg says, "The quicker we can treat kids who dangerously use substances, the better chance they will have to succeed in life. The lack of substance use and mental health treatment services and other community-based supports places children at further risk and can leave them in unsafe situations without the help they need."
      Having rapid evaluation teams in place will serve to connect adolescents in Washington County with resources and a recovery plan in a timely manner. "We feel it is a huge step in improving care of Maine's adolescents," Aalberg says.