The REACH Project: Restoring Every Affected Child's Hope

The OJJDP FY 2019 Opioid Affected Youth Initiative(OAYI)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. The OAYI 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 City of Evansville will use funding to develop The REACH initiative, which will apply four coalition-driven strategies to the work of identifying at-risk youth in each category: 1) opening new data-collecting and sharing channels through formal MOUs and written system/policy changes; 2) analyzing existing data; 3) removing barriers to service for newly identified youth; and 4) preemptively offering proven evidence-based prevention programs with fidelity in indicated schools and community sites to build protective factors and decrease risk factors. Using data and a newly strengthened community infrastructure aimed at identifying youth affected by substance use disorder, the task force will determine the best evidence-based programs to offer referred youth and their families. CA/NCF