Northeast Kentucky AHEC Partnering on Bureau of Justice Assistance Grant Project

The Northeast Kentucky Area Health Education Center (NE KY AHEC), in partnership with primary applicant Marcum & Wallace Hospital and the Kentucky Rural Healthcare Information Organization (KRHIO), was recently awarded a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the State Justice Institute.

The 21 rural sites that were funded will receive $750,000 per grantee to develop tailored and innovative responses to gaps in prevention, treatment, and/or recovery services for individuals involved in the criminal justice system.

While Marcum & Wallace Hospital in Irvine is the main applicant on the 18-month project (six months of planning followed by 12 months of implementation), the NE KY AHEC will among other things provide drug misuse prevention education to students and community members in four target counties: Carter, Estill, Morgan, and Wolfe.

David A. Gross, director of the NE KY AHEC and administrative director for education and research at St. Claire HealthCare in Morehead, will serve as the NE KY AHEC representative to the project, attending monthly meetings and sharing updates on the preventive education the NE KY AHEC will be providing.

“We look forward to collaborating with Marcum & Wallace Hospital and KRHIO to combat the opioid crisis across our shared region,” Gross said. “While most of the NE KY AHEC’s opioid-focused activities have involved youths or the health care sector, this project will give us the opportunity to further engage with law enforcement, criminal justice, and the court system, each of which is incredibly important in our search for a broad-scale solution to the opioid epidemic.”