Community Relations

Habit OPCO strongly believes that through helping individuals and families recover from the effects of opiate addiction, we are also helping communities recover. We strive to become active partners with law enforcement, elected officials and other healthcare providers to work collaboratively toward the goal of reducing or eliminating opiate abuse.

Each Habit OPCO program has established a Community Task Force which meets twice a year as a forum to provide education and receive feedback about our services. In addition, each program has forged a strong alliance with their local hospital to coordinate medical care when necessary and to provide in-service training to nurses and physicians.

As opiate addiction has reached into all of our communities, it has not been discriminating about who it affects. We now see it in our junior high schools prompting sometimes competing community organizations to come together in an unprecedented manner.

Some examples of our community involvement are:

• Participating in a Communities that Care project aimed at prevention and providing education throughout a city-wide school system
• Implementing a program with law enforcement whereby first-time drug possession offenders are offered treatment rather than incarceration
• Coordinating care with Pain Management programs to minimize overlapping services
• Working with our courts providing training and education to judges, probation and parole personnel
• Establishing alliances with obstetricians experienced with high risk pregnancy to closely monitor our pregnant patients

At Habit OPCO we understand that reducing the stigma associated with narcotic addiction and treatment will always be a challenge, but it is a process to which we are firmly committed.