Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Team (START) was identified by the Substance Use Coalition, the Health Director, and the Director of Social Services as an action, that when combined with other actions in our community, that has a reasonable chance of making a difference in substance abuse treatment in our community. This is a new program in our community.

START is a program that incorporates addiction-services treatment, good child welfare practice, and family preservation into case management. Also included is an evaluation of program implementation, operations, and child-welfare and substance abuse treatment outcomes. 

The priority population/customers for this START team are the substane users, their families, and dss clients that fall into the aformentioned groups, and the START team aims to make a difference at the individual/interpersonal behavior and environmental change level. Implementation will take place in the Department of Social Services, the Graham County Department of Public Health and Hights. 

The partners for this START include:

This program started out slowly from late October to January as it was a new program and the logistics were still being worked on. Since January it has grown significantly and our counselor has 13 children he is seeing on a regular basis to help with mental health problems. According to the counselor, there has been progress in attitude and overall happiness in the students he is seeing. We have heard positive reports from the teachers and they are glad that the kids have this program to participate in. It is helping in so many ways. We look forward to what 2023 has in store for this new program.  

After our Health Director left in February 2023, the START program moved away from the Health Department and changed the direction of the program. Hights still has a counselor at Graham County Schools and is still seeing children and their families. Since this program has moved away from the Health Department, we do not have any new data on this. Unfortunately due to the changing of this program to something else outside of the Health Department, this program will no longer be part of our CHA, CHIP, or SOTCH in the coming years.