The Communities of Practice for Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (COP-RCORP) Consortium was created by PIRE and Ohio University in 2018 with grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration. The COP-RCORP Consortium seeks to impact the opioid epidemic by working together as a community of practice to implement policies, practices, and strategies across the continuum of care (prevention, treatment, recovery supports), and to develop and sustain the OUD/SUD workforce in each of the local communities involved. By strengthening the organizational and infrastructural capacity of multi-sector consortiums at the local-level, COP-RCORP Consortium members are reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with opioid overdoses among our high-risk rural communities.
Members of the COP-RCORP Consortium include:
- Ashtabula County MHRS Board
- Fairfield County ADAMH Board
- MHRSB of Seneca, Sandusky & Wyandot Counties
- Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation
- Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs
- Sandusky County Health Department
- Washington County Health Department
To date, the COP-RCORP consortium has formalized its structure through a shared MOA that outlines the roles of each partner, has completed needs assessment and strategic planning processes, and is actively implementing the 15 RCORP-Implementation Core Activities. In addition, the consortium is working actively to leverage local, state, and federal resources to meet the needs of consortium communities.
A sharing economy is a core value of the COP-RCORP consortium and we believe that although not every community can have a RCORP-Planning grant, every community can benefit from the work and experience of grantees. In partnership with Global Insight Productions, a local web design company, we established a project website that includes community pages, background on the consortium, training and technical assistance materials, and videos for each of the core activities of the RCORP-Planning grant, links to technical assistance resources provided by JBS, the RCORP technical assistance provider, and a password protected site that includes video recordings of consortium meetings. The site also features completed work from each of the COP-RCORP communities.
