The University of Missouri-Kansas City is a key collaborator on a recently awarded $30 million-plus project to address the opioid and stimulant crises across the nation. The American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry is the award recipient working with UMKC and Columbia University to lead an unprecedented coalition of 40 national professional organizations on the project.

The UMKC partner in the effort is the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network Office at the School of Nursing and Health Studies. The grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration supports the ongoing work of the Opioid Response Network, originally funded in 2018. To date, the initiative has reached more than 3 million people with education and training to mitigate opioid and stimulant use provided at no cost.

“We’re proud of the network we’ve built nationally, regionally and locally,” says Holly Hagle, co-director of the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network, UMKC assistant research professor and UMKC site principal investigator. “This literally started with a budget on a napkin of what could be done.”

The Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network Office at UMKC is part of the Collaborative to Advance Health Services at the School of Nursing and Health Studies, which has about 30 employees.

“Helping people with substance-use disorders would not be possible without the foundational work of the Addiction Technology Transfer Center located at UMKC since 1993 and collaborating with universities across the country,” says Laurie Krom, principal investigator and co-director of the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network Office and UMKC program director. “There have been a lot of people who have put in countless hours of effort and unyielding passion to develop the network.”

“This latest grant, and the ongoing long-term exceptional performance of the Collaborative to Advance Health Services, exemplifies UMKC leadership in healthcare research and service,” said Chancellor C. Mauli Agrawal.  “Our School of Nursing and Health Studies is at the forefront of national efforts to address the scourge of opioid addiction.”

The new two-year grant began Sept. 30. The Opioid Response Network also intends to expand its support for justice and corrections settings, grow its culturally specific work groups, such as its American Indian/ Alaska Native committee and create new work groups for African Americans, LGBTQ and rural communities. Recognizing the impact stimulant use is having across the country, the network plans to expand resources to provide more educational services in this area – a need that is especially relevant locally.

Based on requests, here is how the network has helped people in the Kansas City area and regionally:

• Provided consultation and support on evidence-based strategies for establishing a recovery high school to a local Kansas City businessman.
• Presented a treatment and recovery-based training series to Jackson County Family Court personnel, including judges, guardians, social workers, juvenile correction personnel and private attorneys. This training included an overview of opioid-use treatment from a medical and behavioral health perspective, a local recovery subject-matter expert with lived experience and an anti-stigma training.
• Consulted a Kansas City-based recovery coalition to help the organization collect information, strategize and plan an initiative to increase the number of recovery housing beds available in the metro area, which included applying the National Alliance for Recovery Residences’ accreditation processes and other recovery supports.
• Developed and support a regular meeting of medical directors and treatment staff from opioid treatment programs in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska, providing opportunities for sharing ideas around treatment and operational issues. This meeting became a vital connection for the participants after the Covid-19 pandemic hit the region. Many programs had to pivot quickly to begin providing services virtually via telehealth and develop safety guidelines for in-person services.
• Translated patient education materials on opioid use disorder in Burmese, Somali and Rohingya for a community hospital in rural western Kansas located near a meat packing plant. The hospital is treating people with limited English language proficiency and had no materials in those respective languages to describe opioid-use disorder symptoms and treatments.