City of Martinsburg receives $796K Center for Substance Abuse Treatment Projects of Regional and National Significance grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Martinsburg cares: first responder and community overdose prevention, response, and linkage to care initiative - martinsburg cares (crisis and addiction response, engagement, and support) is a four-year overdose-prevention and post-overdose response initiative serving berkeley and jefferson counties, West Virginia. The City Of Martinsburg and the martinsburg initiative will train first responders and community partners, expand access to opioid overdose reversal medication, and provide social-work and peer outreach, case management, family support, and warm handoffs. The project will serve 1,195 unduplicated individuals over four years. The service area includes approximately 200,800 residents in martinsburg and surrounding berkeley county communities, with services extending into charles town and surrounding jefferson county referral areas. Martinsburg cares will serve 255 unduplicated individuals in year 1, 290 in year 2, and 325 annually in years 3 and 4. These totals include 1,025 community members and family members receiving individualized services and 170 first responders and key-sector personnel completing core training. The project will serve people of all ages, primarily adults and families affected by or at elevated risk for opioid or polysubstance overdose. Youth will be reached through family-centered services, caregiver education, and age-appropriate prevention. Children under age 18 represent 22.2% of martinsburg residents and 24.1% of charles town residents, while adults age 65 and older represent 16.4% and 13.2%, respectively. The population of focus includes individuals with opioid, stimulant, or other substance use disorders; previous overdose or opioid overdose reversal medication administration; co-occurring mental illness, trauma, or suicide risk; housing instability; justice, reentry, child-welfare, or social-service involvement; and limited access to treatment and recovery supports. Participants may be identified through law enforcement, fire or emergency medical services, emergency departments, 911 or 988, treatment providers, community anchors, families, and other referral sources. Core strategies include overdose education and opioid overdose reversal medication distribution; trauma-informed care; screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment using assist or S2BI when clinically appropriate; peer recovery support; post-overdose outreach; case management; family engagement; and confirmed warm handoffs to treatment, recovery, behavioral healthcare, housing, reentry, and stabilization services. Community cup coffee and more and the eastern panhandle empowerment center will serve as community anchors. The project will also establish a community engagement workgroup, complete sequential intercept model-informed resource mapping, implement standardized referral and warm-handoff procedures, and launch a situation table for individuals and families experiencing acutely elevated risk requiring coordinated multi-agency intervention. The project will: strengthen first-responder and community capacity to prevent and respond to overdose; expand timely post-overdose engagement and connections to care; and establish a coordinated, community-informed, and measurable overdose-response system. Objectives include training 170 first responders and key-sector personnel; purchasing 1,400 and distributing 1,200 opioid overdose reversal medication kits; providing treatment-service and recovery-support information to 625 individuals and families; documenting 265 service linkages; responding to 750 service requests; establishing the community engagement workgroup by month 3; completing resource mapping by month 6; and launching the situation table by month 9. Julota, cordata, spars reporting, monthly dashboards, and annual evaluation will support accountability and continuous quality improvement.