Tennessee Statewide Strategies for Addressing Opioid Affected Youth

The OJJDP FY 2018 Opioid Affected Youth Initiative will fund sites to develop a data-driven coordinated response to identify and address challenges resulting from opioid abuse that are impacting youth and community safety. Category 1: Implementing Data-Driven Strategies and Programs Through Strategic Partnerships will support states, units of local government, and/or tribal governments to (1) develop a multidisciplinary task force with working groups to identify specific areas of concern; (2) collect and interpret data that will assist the task force in developing strategies and programming that will be used to better coordinate response efforts and resources; and (3) implement services that will address public safety concerns, intervention, prevention, and diversion services for children, youth, and families directly impacted by opioid abuse.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) and the Tennessee Alliance for Drug Endangered Children/Tennessee Dangerous Drug Taskforce will use funding to support the development of a statewide, data-driven response system to assist with the identification, prevention, treatment, enforcement and deterrence of opioid use and its impact on the safety of youth and their families in Tennessee communities. During the 36-month grant period, a collaborative Drug Endangered Children (DEC) model and DEC Awareness Campaign will be coordinated through a task force of multi-disciplinary stakeholders and six county DEC Response Teams to (a) implement comprehensive data-collection strategies that allow for early identification of at-risk, drug endangered youth through near-time, multi-disciplinary data sharing, and (b) develop data-driven, strategic service delivery responses to address the abuse of opioids and the public safety concerns it causes for the youth of Tennessee statewide. CA/NCF