Funding to Break the Cycle of Intergenerational Addiction and Overdose

Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) Announces $10.9 Million in New Grants to Prevent Opioid and Substance Use Disorder in Vulnerable Children and Families

New York (March 22, 2022) – The Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE), a private 501(c)(3) national grant-making foundation focused on ending the nation’s opioid crisis, today announced nine new grants totaling $10.9 million over three years to fund prevention programs for vulnerable children and families across the country. Since 2018, FORE has awarded 64 grants totaling $28.8 million to projects focused on solutions to the opioid crisis at the national, state, and community levels.
 
FORE’s latest grants provide urgently needed support for projects aimed at improving and expanding evidence-based prevention strategies for children and families at highest risk, including those with a parent or other family member with an opioid or substance use disorder, those in which family members have been separated for a time, and those in very low-income communities.

“A key step in addressing the opioid crisis is to develop and implement programs to break the cycle of intergenerational addiction,” says FORE President Karen A. Scott, MD., MPH. “These new prevention initiatives have great potential to help mitigate adverse childhood experiences that lead to emotional pain and trauma putting children at higher risk for opioid use disorders. They will also bring much needed interventions to diverse communities.”

“FORE prioritizes its work to reach high-risk populations with evidence-based, patient-centered services,” says Andrea G. Barthwell, MD, Chair of FORE’s Board of Directors. “These three-year grants represent our commitment to learn what must be done with this evolving opioid poisoning crisis. The environment changes, resources wax and wane, government interest changes, and the people affected react differently over time. To be effective we must monitor, learn, and change; only then can we hope to advance the most effective solutions and prevent opioid use disorder.”

Funded Projects

Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, Georgia)
Effect of School-Based Health Centers on the Medical and Behavioral Outcomes of Medicaid-enrolled Children Exposed to Parental Opioid Use
Principal Investigators: Lindsey Bullinger, MPA, PhD and Angelica Meinhofer, PhD
$439,547
Investigators will analyze nationwide data to determine the opportunities for and impact of utilizing school-based health centers to identify, intervene, and mitigate adverse childhood experiences related to having a caregiver with opioid use disorder.

Jewish Family Service of Atlantic County (Margate, New Jersey)
Strengthening Families Against Opioid Use
Principal Investigator: Laura Rodgers, MSW, LCSW
$375,000
Recovery (or drug) courts have traditionally focused on helping adults address their substance use while resolving criminal charges. This project will expand the focus to provide services to children of affected parents through a partnership with New Jersey’s Atlantic County Recovery Court.

Morgan County Partnership (Berkeley Springs, West Virginia)
Project Resilience: Addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences in Appalachia
Principal Investigator: Kristen Gingery, MA
$1,500,000
The number of families affected by opioid and other substance use disorders continues to increase in Morgan County, West Virginia. Project RESILIENCE will provide a new community-wide initiative focused on identifying and supporting children experiencing adverse childhood experiences and their families.

National Indian Youth Leadership Development Project (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Walking in Strength
Principal Investigator: McClellan Hall
$1,476,184
American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents have one of the highest fatal opioid overdose rates in the nation. This project aims to implement culturally guided youth development programs and interventions for these vulnerable families on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Denver Health and Hospital Foundation (Denver, Colorado)
Denver Health's Multi-Generational Approach to Prevention and Recovery: A Hub-and-Spoke Model for Families with Opioid Use Disorder
Principal Investigators: Lucia Walsh Pedersen, PhD and Christopher Sheldon, PhD
$1,489,934
This project will address gaps in care for children whose parents have a substance use disorder through the creation and integration of preventative services for children into Denver Health’s existing safety-net hub-and-spoke treatment model for adults with substance use disorder.

University of California, San Francisco
Evaluating & Sustaining Team Lily, A multidisciplinary Perinatal Care Program Supporting Pregnant People and Their Families Affected by Substance Use Disorders
Principal Investigator: Dominika Seidman, MD, MAS
$1,320,000
Investigators will evaluate Team Lily, a program providing comprehensive services to pregnant and post-partum people who are affected by substance use disorders, homelessness, and mental illness in San Francisco, with the goal of establishing a sustainable model that can be adopted by other safety-net hospitals.

University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Training School- and Community-Based Providers to Prevent and Manage Pain, Trauma, and Opioid Abuse for New Mexico’s Youth
Principal Investigators: Sanjeev Arora, MD, MACP, FACG, and Joanna Katzman, MD, MSPH
$1,500,000
School and community-based health care teams will be trained to provide support to youth at-risk for adverse childhood experiences using the Project ECHO model, a highly successful intervention for training healthcare providers, particularly those in rural and remote areas.

University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida)
Adapting and Testing an Intervention for Families with a Parent in Methadone Treatment
Principal Investigator: Khary Rigg, PhD
$1,314,208
Families with a parent receiving methadone treatment are often overlooked for evidence-based, family-focused prevention interventions. This project seeks to create wider adoption of the Families Facing the Future model, an effective intervention for parents and their children that wholistically addresses the adverse experiences of having a parent with an opioid addiction.

University of Washington (Seattle, Washington)
Northwest Center for Family Support: Building Statewide Capacity to Implement Evidence-Based Interventions in Families with Opioid Use Disorder
Principal Investigator: Margaret Kuklinski, PhD
$1,500,000
When caregivers struggle with opioid use disorder, children may be at increased risk for trauma and poor outcomes. This project will establish the Northwest Center for Family Support to increase access to evidence-based family-focused interventions in opioid treatment programs throughout Washington state.

ABOUT FORE
The Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) was founded in 2018 as a private 501(c)(3) national, grant-making foundation focused on addressing the nation’s opioid crisis. FORE is committed to funding a diversity of projects contributing solutions to the crisis at national, state, and community levels. FORE’s mission is to support partners advancing patient-centered, innovative, evidence-based solutions impacting people experiencing opioid use disorder, their families, and their communities. Through convening, grantmaking and developing informational resources, FORE seeks to bring about long-term change. To date, FORE has awarded 64 grants totaling $28.8 million.