Gateway to Prevention and Recovery

PROJECT PURPOSE

Gateway to Prevention and Recovery is one of the largest providers of outpatient addiction and co-occurring treatment services outside of Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Primarily serving rural areas, Gateway is unique in Oklahoma as the only provider emphasizing prevention equally with treatment. The majority of the counties Gateway serves are not adjacent to any major metropolitan area, thus increasing barriers for individuals seeking treatment for Substance Use Disorder (SUD). Of Oklahoma residents who received services through ODMHSAS in FY20, 12% resided in one of the 9 counties Gateway serves. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Gateway has seen a steep increase in need for mental health and substance abuse services, with a large percentage of cases requiring more urgent intervention to ensure safety. ARPA funding will allow us to increase our capacity through expansion of facilities and services to provide prevention, treatment, and recovery programming to rural populations. This will eliminate barriers to care, while strengthening overall health of the state through improved long-term recovery rates as well as prevention of the onset of substance use in youth. This expansion of evidence-based services impacts not only individuals, but also our criminal justice, healthcare, and education systems, as well as the economy.

EVIDENCE

All of Gateway?s programs are evidence-based. Prevention programs use the Strategic Prevention Framework and treatment is provided by licensed professionals. The Rural Health Information Hub states that ?substance use can be especially hard to combat in rural communities due to limited resources for prevention, treatment, and recovery.? With provisional data from the CDC showing a 30% increase in drug overdose deaths across the country in 2020, increasing Gateway?s capacity to provide services across the spectrum of prevention, treatment, and recovery, particularly to rural populations, is crucial to improving the health and economy of the state.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

Gateway serves rural communities, primarily in southeast Oklahoma, where there are high rates of poverty, fewer jobs, and low access to healthcare. These counties account for 13% of Oklahoma?s total COVID-19 cases and deaths, and due to their rurality, will take longer to recover. Two key contributing factors to behavioral health disorders are social isolation and financial insecurity, circumstances that have increased for almost everybody since 2020. These issues are fundamental to understanding the poor behavioral health outcomes we are currently seeing. Access to services in rural Oklahoma is challenging due to transportation barriers, provider shortages, and technological limits. As a rural provider, Gateway has the staff, technology, relationships, and facilities to minimize these barriers. Expanding services will help rural Oklahomans through youth prevention programs to avert future substance abuse, treating those suffering from SUD, and supporting individuals in recovery.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

All of Gateway?s programs have an evaluation component. The clinical program is evaluated through ODMHSAS as well as internally. Prevention programs require evidence-based evaluations which are used to assess the effectiveness of programs, achieve positive outcomes, and ensure the objectives of the grant and programmatic timelines are met. Additionally, Gateway contracts with an independent, professional evaluator to ensure the agency as a whole is providing high-quality, impactful services as effectively as possible. Gateway will partner with this evaluator to implement expanded or new project performance measurement systems for all capacity-building activities, as well as to collect all required data.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma