Rulo Strategies LLC

If you're interested in keeping up with the latest rural justice-related research and innovative rural justice solutions, check out the Rural Justice Collaborative Newsletter. We will put a link in the comments so you can subscribe to get the monthly newsletter delivered to your inbox.

Have you heard of NaloxBoxes? This podcast from the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program delves into NaloxBox implementation, challenges, and community responses.

The Reaching Rural Fellow Spotlight this month highlights Jackson County ONE, a team of cross-sector practitioners from Jackson County, Texas, dedicated to tackling substance use in their community. Through the Reaching Rural initiative, they are focusing on improving access to treatment and support services for residents. They're addressing transportation challenges that often prevent individuals from traveling to larger communities for care. Through the program, they will be offering treatment and peer support services directly in the county, working closely with law enforcement and the jail to provide referrals. 

That moment when your team comes up with a great idea! We've been so proud to see this year's Reaching Rural Initiative Fellows develop creative solutions to help communities support individuals with Substance Use Disorder.

I enjoyed this article about the opportunities to link justice-involved people to services at all points in the sequential intercept model, particularly the discussion about the challenges of hiring persons with lived experience.

This month's Rural Justice Collaborative Innovation Site Spotlight shines on the Reaching Rural Initiative in South Carolina. This initiative provides resources to victims of crime in their local communities and remotely. The project partners with established local organizations in each rural county to create Victims’ Rights Centers (VRCs). The VRCs provide victims access to private office space that is equipped with a computer, secure internet connection, scanner, printer and a desk. The VRCs are located inside trusted community partners’ buildings and are unmarked from the outside. This anonymity gives victims access to the tools necessary to access victims’ services, meet with their attorney, attend court hearings, print documents, etc., privately and discreetly.

This new resource from Abt. is designed to support partnerships between practitioners and evaluators who are implementing and evaluating programs, especially those designed to prevent, respond to, and address substance misuse. The action plan is designed to lay out a plan for program evaluation. This includes clearly identifying the problem the project aims to address, the data that led to identifying this problem, a logic model that identifies solution(s) to be tested, and a preliminary plan to evaluate program impact and implementation.

This is a helpful resource for anyone interested in learning best practices for developing continuity of care as individuals transitioning from jails or prisons to the community.

Check out this webinar from The Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network about implementing harm reduction initiatives in rural communities. In addition to strategies, it also provides information on overcoming barriers. We'll put a link to the full presentation below.

Want to learn how cross-sector stakeholders can collaborate to solve difficult opioid-related problems in your rural community? Stay tuned to this page. We expect to announce the next round of Reaching Rural Fellowship opportunities within the next few weeks.