Crouse Hospital receives grant for women’s substance-abuse treatment

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Crouse Hospital in Syracuse will use a grant of $733,000 for substance-abuse programming for women identified as “high need/high risk.”

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) awarded the funding to the hospital’s chemical-dependency treatment services, which partners with the Syracuse Community Treatment Court.

The Washington, D.C.–based Bureau of Justice Assistance is part of the U.S. Department of Justice, according to its website. SAMHSA, headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, is an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Crouse’s chemical-dependency treatment services created the “Women of Worth” (WOW) program to recognize “the many challenges women face that may interfere with their recovery,” according to a news release that the hospital issued Monday.

The challenges include domestic violence, lack of stable housing, absence of healthy social networks, lack of job skills, and medical and mental-health needs.

Crouse will use the funding to add additional counselors, train clinicians in trauma-informed care and cultural competence specific to the target population, and provide substance-abuse treatment and education that insurance doesn’t cover.

In addition to traditional substance-use disorder treatment, the target population will be able to participate in vocational counseling and a variety of “evidence-based interventions” based on individual-treatment needs, Crouse said.

“The primary goal of this program is to engage women who enter the Syracuse Community Treatment Court system through substance-abuse treatment and evidence-based practices specific to their needs in a safe and caring environment,” Monika Taylor, director of behavioral health at Crouse Hospital, said in the news release.

In working with Crouse, the program seeks to increase treatment-completion rates and “enhance” employment opportunities for women who complete the program, Kim Kozlowski, project director for Syracuse Community Treatment Court, said.

Crouse operates the region’s only hospital-based, substance-abuse treatment service, which serves over 20 counties and had more than 3,000 admissions in 2014, according to its news release.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com