New State Strategic Plan Promotes Recovery in Health Care and Community
DENVER — About 400,000 Coloradans are in recovery from a substance use disorder. Today, the State of Colorado is releasing its first-ever strategic plan to educate people about recovery and create a vision for a system that helps support Coloradans wherever they are.
Recovery is a process of change through which an individual makes a commitment to improve their health and well-being, live a self-directed life and strive to reach their full potential.
In 2018, the General Assembly requested a strategic plan to address recovery statewide and assigned the task to the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention. This plan, developed by the Colorado Health Institute (CHI) in partnership with the Consortium and the Colorado Department of Human Services, Office of Behavioral Health (OBH), fulfills that mandate.
"We know that support for someone who has struggled with addiction can't end when they leave treatment," said Robert Werthwein, Director of the Office of Behavioral Health. "This plan will help guide our state as we strive to ensure that we're supporting people in recovery and helping them maintain the quality of life that they choose."
The report was informed by a Recovery Advisory Committee that engaged nearly 400 Coloradans with lived experience and their allies to develop the plan.
“We worked hard on developing this report, spending a lot of time working with the recovery community,” said Rourke Weaver, co-chair of the Consortium’s Recovery Work Group and co-founder of Spero Recovery. Weaver was a member of the advisory committee that drafted the plan. “We think the strategies laid out here will really help Coloradans find the care and support people in recovery and those seeking it need so they can live better lives.”
The plan identifies and prioritizes three strategic objectives: To create a recovery-oriented system of care; to provide recovery-oriented clinical care, and to equip communities with recovery support. It outlines steps the state can take to reach each objective, including:
Create a recovery-oriented system of care
- Create sustained targeted funding opportunities to support existing recovery support services or develop new services.
- Implement systematic data collection to assess and monitor recovery.
- Promote recovery as a priority issue in behavioral health discussions.
Provide recovery-oriented clinical care;
- Expand access to medication-assisted recovery.
- Equip substance use treatment providers to connect people in recovery to supports as part of their treatment or service plans.
- Equip communities with recovery support.
- Strengthen communities by increasing access to recovery residences statewide.
- Engage law enforcement and criminal justice to discuss opportunities for providing recovery support services to people involved in the justice system.
While the recommendations in the plan are specific to substance use disorders, many of the findings can be broadly considered for mental health as well.
The plan will inform work around the state to support Coloradans as they work to recover and live fulfilling lives. It is available online: https://www.coloradohealthinstitute.org/research/colorados-statewide-strategic-plan-substance-use-disorder-recovery-2020-2025
About the Colorado Health Institute
The Colorado Health Institute, which produced this strategic plan, is a nonprofit and independent health policy research organization that is a trusted source of objective information, data, and analysis for the state’s health care leaders. The Colorado Health Institute is primarily funded by the Caring for Colorado Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, The Colorado Trust and the Colorado Health Foundation.
About the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention
The Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention coordinates Colorado’s statewide response to the prescription drug abuse epidemic, focusing on the opioid crisis. The Consortium works with stakeholders such as government agencies, community groups, law enforcement, and the medical community. The Consortium is part of the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.
About this report
This report was funded by the Colorado Department of Human Services, Office of Behavioral Health with funding from the State Opioid Response grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The Colorado Department of Human Services, Office of Behavioral Health oversees and purchases substance use and mental health prevention, treatment, and recovery services and provides inpatient care at the state mental health institutes.